


The Last Danse

by MaevesChild



Series: Fusion Core [2]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Bigotry & Prejudice, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, False Memories, Graphic Description, Heartbreak, Identity Issues, Memories, Past Violence, Tragic Romance, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 23:40:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 22,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6260536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaevesChild/pseuds/MaevesChild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Faced with an Impossible choice, the Sole Survivor chooses the Railroad and the Minutemen over the Brotherhood.  She's also in love with Danse.</p><p>It's not going to go well.</p><p>An AU take on what might happen if the Sole Survivor can convince Danse to continue to be her companion after the destruction of the Brotherhood of Steel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Danse, no!”

He didn’t hear her.  She felt the tingle on her skin as the bolt from his laser rifle zinged past her face.  If she hadn’t instinctively dodged, he would have killed her.  

She tried to come  to him the same way she had when Maxson sent her to kill him.  No power armor. Weapons cold.  This time, he fired on her.  She rolled and snapped up her rifle, the .308 shell screaming through the air.  It found a chink in the rusty old power armor he built for himself.  Blood spattered.  

She scrambled for cover, hiding behind the rusted remains of a car clogged with debris.  She’d tracked him down at the Red Rocket Station.  If she’d been just a little slower?  Her heart hammered in her chest.  If he'd made it to Sanctuary he would have been dead before she even realized what was happening.  If anyone should have to pay for her sins, it should be her, not him.  But she had things to do first.  Things that couldn’t wait for her self hatred.  

He fired a few more times, missing her entirely.  There was no way to tell if the missing was intentional or not.  She knew if he hadn’t been in that damned armor, her shot would have dropped him.  But it held him upright, even if she’d just shattered his kneecap.

“You killed them!” His voice was ragged.  “You murdered them!”

“You mean just like they were going to murder you?” She shouted at him.  The handle of the car door dug into her shoulder blades.  “They didn’t give me much of a choice!”

“You blew up the fucking Prydwen!” She heard him try to take a faltering step.  Metal screamed against metal but she could hear his labored breathing over it.  “Our brothers and sisters are all dead!”

“Do you know what they asked me to do?” She flipped over on to her knees, carefully staying behind cover.  But he was talking, not shooting.  It was a step in the right direction.  “They wanted me to storm into the Railroad and murder them all in cold blood.  Just because they wanted to help synths. You know, synths like you!”

She heard him start and stop talking at least three times before she interrupted. “Look Danse, if I come out of here are you going to fire at me again?”

“I should kill you,” he said.  “But I won’t.  You have my word.”  He made a deep rumbling noise in the back of his throat.  “For now.”

There was a sharp pain behind her right eye.  She ground her knuckle into her forehead. She bit back her anger because that certainly wasn’t going to help.  She understood why he was angry.  Fuck, she was angry too.  But in the end, all she could do was choose the lesser of evils.

Didn’t mean it wasn’t still evil.

She dragged herself to her feet and set her rifle down in a deep dent on the roof of the car.  Whatever the Brotherhood had become, she knew Danse tried to abide by what they were supposed to stand for.  He wasn’t going to shoot her if she was unarmed.  God, she hoped so at least.  If she didn't know him at least this much, the rest of this was going to go poorly.  If she's misjudged him like everyone else did, then the Commonwealth was on its own.

He stared at her gun with a blank expression.  But his knuckles were white as he gripped his rifle.  The afternoon sun glinted off his armor.  She tried to wait for him to look back up at her again, but he seemed transfixed. She also tried to ignore the wet splatter of blood dripping down the leg of his armor.

“Danse,” she said, failing to ignore both.  He lifted his eyes but not his head, glaring at her from under his thick eyebrows.  “I’m sorry.”

He snorted.  “Fuck you.”

She smacked her lips.  “Fair enough.” She shook her head, hair shaking into her eyes.  “I’m not sorry.  I had to make a choice and I made it.  The future of the whole Commonwealth was in front of me.  The future of a lot more lives than just the ones on the Prydwen.”

“When you put on that uniform,” he said, pointing at her, his voice dripping with derision.  “You made a promise.”

“I made a promise to be a decent human being first,” she spat back. “The Brotherhood lost it’s way Danse.  Maxson was determined to lead us all to hell.  For fucks sake, he wanted me to put a bullet in your head.”

“You should have.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Not this again.”  She turned her back to him.  It went against everything she’d learned since she came out of the deep freeze, but she wanted to trust him.  If she couldn’t trust him, if she couldn’t get through to him, he might as well shoot her in the back and be done with it.   She loved him.  He hadn’t said he loved her, but she had hoped. And if he was the sort of man who’d still kill her after everything they’d been through, then it was exactly what she deserved for being so stupid.

“Again,” he said.  

She put her hands against the sides of her head and squeezed.  With a sigh she dropped them hard to her sides and turned around to face him. His face was stone and his lips were pale.

“Is it even possible to talk sense to you?”

A muscle twitched in his jaw but he didn’t reply.

She blinked too long, not wanting to keep looking at him.  What happened to the man in the bunker?  The man she fell in love with, the man who looked like he might actually be willing to hear her out?

“I don’t know why everyone wants me to make these choices, but they do.  And all I can do is what I think is best, even if it’s terrible and it hurts me.  It wasn’t a choice I made lightly. But if I didn’t do it, if I let them keep doing what Maxson was leading them towards?  It was going to be goddamn genocide.”  She shook her head, swallowed the lump in her throat.  “Even if being a synth hasn’t given you any compassion for them, what about ghouls?  Not the ferals, who killing is practically a mercy, but the rest of them. They're human beings Danse, more than even you are. They are just physically changed, mostly by accident.  We can’t condemn them just because they survived radiation exposure. What kind of a monster does that?”

“They’re _freaks_.”  Danse’s voice wavered a little.

“They’re PEOPLE, you ass,” she snapped back.  “We are all freaks.”  She set her jaw and glared up at him.  “Do you have any idea what this world looks like to me?” She snorted. “When the bombs fell I lived in a house with running water.  I had new clothes and a car and blankets for my bed.  I watched mindless entertainment on TV while a Mr. Handy did my dishes.  My house was clean and I didn’t have to shoot giant mutant murder crabs to eat.  For a living, I argued the cases of criminals who wanted a fair trial.  Now a trial is just who's a better shot.  This entire world is fucked. It sure as hell isn’t going to get any better if we start shooting people for looking weird.”

“And if we don’t, what sort of future does humanity have?”

She advanced on him, poking her finger in the metal chest plate of his armor.  “What’s the point of having a future if we have to give up everything that makes us human to get there?”  She dropped her hand. “Look, you have two choices here.  One is you pull your head out of your ass and help me take down the Institute. Two is you pull out your gun and I pull out mine and we see who’s a better shot.”  She narrowed her eyes.  “You’re already bleeding.  And I'm a better lawyer with this rifle than I ever was in a courtroom. Sure you want to test this?”

“You’re still going to go after the Institute?” He sounded genuinely surprised.

“Of course I am,” she said.  She felt that pang in her chest again.

 _Shaun._  

“I made a bigger promise to the man running that place than I ever did to the Brotherhood.  He’s my son.  My _only_ child.” Her chest felt tight as hell.  “But they’re wrong.  Not even because of the synths, but because of what they do with them.  They’ve been using their technology to bully and murder.  They are building people in a lab, people just like you, and making them into slaves.  It’s wrong.  It's wrong and it can’t go on."  She looked away, watching the long shadows creep across the broken pavement.   "I thought I could change things; I thought I could talk him out of it.  But whatever bond love and blood made wasn’t strong enough to undo what they did to him.  And if that means I have to kill my own child for the greater good, then so be it.”

Danse frowned.  “You’re not having a lot of luck convincing anyone of anything.”

“Apparently I’m a shitty lawyer,” she said.  “Because my arguments suck.  But these days I get to be the judge, jury and executioner too.  I’m going to do what I have to do.”

He was silent for a few agonizingly long moments.  Finally, he holstered his rifle onto his back. “I’ll help you.  But I don’t know if I can forgive you.”

“I won’t ever forgive myself for a lot of things. You’ll be in good company.”  She looked at him, just stared at his cold, expressionless face and wondered what happened to the man she thought she knew.  He wasn’t perfect; he was angry, he was hateful sometimes. But once she found out what he was, once she started to put the pieces together?  She thought she was starting to understand why he was so broken.  She thought she could fix him.  She wasn’t so sure any more.

“Once the Institute is gone, there won’t be any more need for the Railroad, not really.  And I swear to god I won’t let them do what they did to you to anyone else.”

His brow furrowed.  “What are you talking about?”

“How else did a synth end up in the Capital Wasteland with a few vague memories and no recollection of what he was or where he came from?  If you’d just run away, you would have known what you are.  If the Institute sent you, they wouldn’t have listed you as missing.  All that’s left is the Railroad.” She grimaced.  “The fucking Railroad who thought they were doing you a favor leaving you without anything to love, any good memories to hold on to. I can’t blame you for being so dedicated to the Brotherhood, even after things went to hell. They were the only family you ever had.  If they’d let just you remember them, maybe it would have been different.  If you remembered how they helped you and got you away from the Institute, hell, that could have given you something to base a real life on.”

“I don’t see how that would have made any difference,” he said, icy.  “I’m only what the Institute made me.”

“Bullshit,” she snapped.  “You’re a goddamn person. Don’t let anyone tell you the fuck otherwise.  You joined the Brotherhood because you wanted to do right by your people, by humans.  You risked your life every day to try to make the world better.  Even if your leaders were misguided, your heart was always in the right place.  And if you knew you were a synth, if you knew humans and ghouls had tried to help you, chances are, you wouldn’t have let all that hate build inside you.”  She shook her head again.  “I never hated the synths, I just hated what they were forced to become.  I just hated their master, their father.”  She felt her lip tremble.  “I hate what they made my son into.”

He seemed to deflate a little.  She heard the sudden hiss as the latch of his armor opened.  He stepped down on to the dirty ground and stumbled back, unable to support his weight on his knee.  The entire lower leg of his uniform was soaked with blood.  Woodenly, he grabbed a stimpack and stabbed the needle into his thigh, sighing with relief.

She took a step back to give him room as he limped around the bulk of his armor and sat down hard on the hood of the rusted out car. Danse looked up at her.  

“I don’t know what to say,” he said.  “This is....”

“It’s not any easier over here, Danse.”

“I thought I knew you.”

“You do. I haven’t changed.”

He grunted.  “I suppose you’re right.  You really haven’t. I did.”

“No,” she disagreed.  “You just found out who you are.”

“I still don’t know who that is.”

She took a chance and sat down next to him.  The metal creaked under their combined weight but held steady.  When he didn’t flinch away, she continued. “When this is over, I want you to come to Goodneighbor with me, assuming we survive.  There’s a doctor there. She works with the Railroad.  She’s the one that implants those fake memories.  Maybe she can find a way to give you your old ones back.”

“I don’t know if I want them,” he said.  “It’s hard enough knowing I’m a synth, without remembering being one too.”  

“Well, chances are, this half cocked plan to blow up the Institute is going to get us all killed anyway.  But if it doesn’t, at least talk to her.  I don’t know if she can even do this, but it’s worth knowing.” She tried to smile.  “Even if you’ll stick out like a neon light in the dark in Goodneighbor.  We might have to bring Hancock along, just so we don’t get shot.”

“I don’t think I’d like him even if he was human,” Danse groused.

“He is human,” she said before he could go on.  “No matter what either of you think.”

“You argue with him like this too?”

She smiled.  “Yes. Well, no, not quite like this.  No one’s ever ended up bleeding.”  She sighed.  “But he wasn’t happy with me when I joined the Brotherhood.”  Her chest hurt again.  God, maybe he should have shot her.  It would have hurt less.  “But I don’t regret doing it.  If I hadn’t I wouldn’t never have known you.”

“You shot me.”  His face was deadpan.  She almost laughed.

“Yeah, well,” she said.  “I could have killed you.”

Danse swallowed hard enough that she heard it.  “But you said…” There were too long pauses between the words as he struggled to continue.  He closed his eyes.  “You told me you were in love with me.”

Her hands tingled.  “I am.  That didn’t change.  Nothing changed.”

“How couldn’t it?” He choked on the words.  “Rhys, Haylen...they’re all dead aren’t they?”

Her eyes were burning.  She liked Haylen, sweet and kind.  She was the first one to jump to Danse’s defense when Maxson ordered him terminated.  She even liked Rhys, as much of an asshole as he was.  She wouldn’t have done it if they’d just stood down.  “Yes. I’m not even sure they knew it was me.”  She couldn’t bring herself to elaborate further.

“I should have died with them.” He said. “I owed them that much.”

“They threw you out and they turned their backs on you.” She corrected herself.  “Admittedly, Haylen tried but in the end she chose the Brotherhood over you.  Just like you taught her.  But damn it Danse, I couldn’t let them kill everybody.”  

He didn’t reply but he didn’t get up or move away either.

“I’m sorry I shot you.”

“I was trying to kill you.”

“No you weren't,” she ventured.  “You’re a better shot than that.”

He looked away, out over the scrubby grass and hills that were turning gold as the sun started to go down.

“I don’t know,” he said.  “I wanted to kill you.  But I couldn’t.  I think….dammit.”

“Look Danse…”  she started and he cut her off.

“Shut up and let me talk.” She raised her eyebrows in surprise, but kept her mouth shut.  “I wanted to kill you.  I’m supposed to want to kill you.  For the Brotherhood.   _Ad Victorium_.” He spoke like those words tasted bad.  “But that didn’t feel much like victory.  Because you're right.  You are the only person who didn’t turn their back on me.  Worse, it's a lie if I said I didn’t care what happened to you.”  He looked at his hand perched on his thigh intently, still gripping the empty stimpack.  “I think maybe I did love you.  But I don’t know if I can anymore.”

It felt like she’d been shot.  Easier to be the faceless figurehead for the Minutemen to stand behind, the code named Railroad agent, the raider killer, the Super Mutant exterminator.  Better to be anything, including dead, than this.  Better that he pretend it never happened at all.

But she understood.   _What could a man without memories of his own, with only loss and war in his head know about love anyway?_  She lied to herself. _It would be okay._  It would never be okay again.

“I understand,” she said, forcing herself to reply.  “But if I have to sacrifice everything to save people, to save the Commonwealth, then I’ll do it.  I won’t regret destroying the Institute.  Knowing I am going to kill my son, even if he is already dying, will haunt me forever.  I can’t regret what I did to the Prydwen, what I had to do to stop Maxson, but I’ll always regret what I had to do to you.”

“It hurts,” he admitted.  “Like when Cutler...when I had to kill him.” He balled his hand into a fist.  

She tried to touch his arm and this time he did flinch away.

“Don’t. Don’t touch me.”

She put her hand over her chest to keep her heart from breaking through her ribs.  The pain behind her eye throbbed mercilessly.

Danse got to his feet and stomped around to the back of his armor.  The metal protested as he climbed inside, that familiar and slightly terrifying hiss sounding as it closed around him.  He grabbed her rifle from the roof of the car and held it out to her.

“Come on.”  He stuttered for a moment as if he was going to add the usual _soldier_ to the end of that, but stopped himself.  His eyes were emotionless again.  “We’ve got an Institute to stop.”

She took her rifle from him and tried to stay calm.  Turning her back to him again, her eyes were pointed directly into the too bright glow of the sun.  Sanctuary was west northwest from here.  The sun would be in her eyes the whole way.  Her eyes watered.

_Right, that’s what they were doing._


	2. Chapter 2

They were celebrating.

She tried to throttle down the part of herself that wanted to lash out in anger.  Listening to their laughter, tears, their happy slurring words made her chest ache.  Her son was _dead._   He might have been a grown man.  He was man grown into a morally corrupt stranger who could not be swayed by compassion.  But that didn’t make it any easier to know that he was dead.  He was gone forever, the last vestige of the husband she loved who died all those years ago.

It didn’t feel like years to her.

The only consolation had been meeting her friends; companions who supported her and carried her on their shoulders when she couldn’t hold herself up anymore. She had Sanctuary too, though it was nothing at all like it had been before the war.  Thankfully, it was different enough that as long as she stayed out the shell of her old house where Shaun’s crib stood like a shrine, she was usually okay.

But it wasn’t _good._ Nothing was really good these days, just _not terrible_ enough to cope with.

The only truly good thing that had come from the Institute was despite them.  She fell in love with a machine who thought he was a man.  A machine who _was_ a man as far as she was concerned.

She was losing him too.  Already lost him, probably.

At least he wasn’t celebrating.  Danse had more reason to hate the Institute than most. But instead of taking part in the revelry, he found a quiet spot and took apart his laser rifle.  He was cleaning it, piece by piece. Each part was laid with precision on the workbench.  The yellow flicker of the lightbulb overhead making strange shadows against the near darkness.

She slipped away from the others but knew it wouldn’t go unnoticed.  With a grand gesture and a handful of Jet, Hancock deftly grabbed everyone’s attention.  He was a good friend. Probably would have been a better choice as a lover too; chems and violence and overlong lifespan included.  Less drama.  More good times.

Sometimes she cursed herself for having a type.

She could only see his silhouette at first, but as she got closer, details came into view. Danse cocked his head and she could see only the curve of a cheekbone and the sharp angle at the back of his jaw. For a moment she swore it was Nate standing there.  Her heart flipped in her chest.  Danse moved his head, turned until he was in profile and the illusion disappeared.

_God help her._

She wondered on more than one occasion if that was part of her problem.  But she knew better.  It was just an excuse.  Anything to blame for her heart.

Danse didn’t look up, though she knew he heard her approaching footsteps. Dogmeat was lying at his feet.  One ear swiveled in her direction, but he didn’t even lift his head.  Poor boy was exhausted.  

After the Institute went up, they spent a lot of time trying to account for everyone.  The Minutemen got those who evacuated to Diamond City and other accepting settlements. Raiders would have eaten up those soft people so fast.  It would have been better for them to have died in the blast if they hadn’t stopped to help.

Then there were the synths, many without social skills and as naive as children.  The Railroad took charge of them.  For some, Amari would be their only hope for a life.  They needed memories to even begin to understand how to live.  She bristled at the thought.

She _wondered_.  Was Danse like that once?  Was she putting blame where it didn’t belong?  Maybe the Railroad had done the best they could with what they had?

He turned and looked at her, shutting down the stream of self doubt racing through her head.  Everything stopped dead at the cold, blank expression in his eyes. As cold as he could be, those eyes used to be the one thing that saved him.  Even when he barked orders, snapped at her, his dark eyes were warm and compassionate.  But not now.

Before, he would have greeted her with a title.   _Knight._ Or maybe _Soldier._ Now, he said nothing and looked back at his rifle.  He set the grease stained rag down and began to reassemble the pieces.

“Congratulations,” he said. His voice was low and barely audible over the click of plastic and metal sliding back into place.  “The Commonwealth has much to be grateful for today.”

She sighed.  “I suppose they do.”

There was a soft snap as he plugged wires back together.  “Whatever else, I know that destroying the Institute was right.  No more perversion of nature by their hands.”

Resisting the urge to snap at him, she spoke through her clenched teeth.  “I stopped them because they thought they knew what was right for everyone. They dismissed everyone else.  No one group can make the decisions for all.”

Danse looked at her out of the corner of his eye.  He knew she wasn’t just talking about the Institute.  She could almost hear the thoughts, the recriminations that lept on to the tip of his tongue.  He stared at her, eyes still cold as cryo for a few long heartbeats.  But then his expression fell.  He frowned and and his brow furrowed.

“You’re right,” he muttered and looked away.  He lifted his rifle and locked the buttstock into place.  He looked down the sights and nodded before setting it back down on the workbench.  He laid his palms flat against the worn metal tabletop and stared at the wall behind it.  ”I’ll leave in the morning.”

Her heart stopped.  “What?”

He didn’t move.  “There’s no reason for me to stay now.”

“What about Amari?” She wondered if she sounded as desperate as she felt.  “The Memory Den?”

Danse grunted, the facsimile of a laugh.  “I assumed you’d forgotten about that.  You had good reason to convince me to stay and not continue the course of action I was on.  I don’t blame you for using whatever was at your disposal to do that job.  I taught you that after all.”

“It wasn’t a tactic,” she said, this time her voice snapping sharp.  She felt lightheaded.  “I meant it.  If anyone knows the truth about you, it’ll be her.”

He straightened his back, ran a finger over his scarred eyebrow. “I’m not entirely sure I want to know.”

“I won’t force you to go,” she said, tempering her voice this time.  She tried to keep breathing.  “Or stay if you don’t want to.”

Danse sighed but said nothing.

“But I don’t want you to leave.” Her heart pounded hard enough that she wondered if he could see it.

He sighed again.  Hesitated.  “I should go.  Everything I was taught says I should go.”  He shook his head and made a pained sound.  “But where would I go?  I can’t return to the Brotherhood; I have no memories of a home.”  He looked at her.  “The only thing I could think of was returning to Rivet City.  But there’s nothing there but more people to find out what I am and drive me away.  And rightfully so.”

“It’s not right,” she said, maybe too fast. “You didn’t decide what you are.”

“Maybe not, but it doesn’t change anything.”  He tried to keep eye contact, but couldn’t, looking back at the workbench.  He ran his hand over the stock of his rifle.  “If this Doctor Amari can’t help..." He paused, frowned harder.  "Perhaps it would be better if she wiped my memory so I could start over.  Somewhere far away where I can’t hurt anyone.”

She closed her eyes and swallowed hard.  He wanted to forget.  She couldn’t blame him.  She was almost jealous at his having the option.

“That’s up to you.”  She wanted to put her hand on his arm to comfort him, but she couldn’t forget what happened the last time she tried.

_Don’t touch me._

Instead, she balled her hands into fists.  “We can go to Goodneighbor in the morning.  Talk to Amari and then decide, okay?”

Danse nodded.  He scooped up his rifle and held it close like a shield between them. “Alright,” he agreed.  “Tomorrow.”  Without another word, he turned and disappeared through the doorway.  She watched him go.  She was sure she could smell the tang of ozone; the same sharp smell from when he aimed his rifle at her, and fired.


	3. Chapter 3

“M7-97?”

Amari didn’t seem the type to be too shocked by anything. But her dark skin looked wan and grey, her eyes showed a little too much white.

“You were right,” Danse said, folding his arms over his chest.  “Again.”  

The trip to Goodneighbor had been less than enjoyable.  They hardly spoke, even when they took down raiders and a few ferals along the way.  Danse was an unmovable object, silent, morose.  She didn’t blame him for that any more than she blamed Amari for being surprised.  Both were her fault.  The guilt was heavy.

“I guess so,” she said, tucking an imaginary lock of hair behind her ear.  “Not sure if it’s good or bad.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” Amari said, the normal clip of her voice stilted.  “It isn’t safe.”

Danse dropped his arms and balled up his fists.

“It’s fine Amari,” she replied before Danse could snap at her.  He gave her a dirty look.  “The Institute is gone, you know that.  There’s still work to be done, but no one is hunting for the synths anymore.  At least no one with the Institute’s resources.” She cleared her throat.  “And that means some things need to change.  But we’ll get to that.  First, I need to know what you do the memories of the synths.”

“I erase them,” Amari said.  She shook her head.  “It wouldn’t be safe to keep them.”

 _Well, that was that._ Danse’s posture deflated.  She wasn’t sure if it was relief or disappointment.  The basement of the Memory Den seemed impossibly small.  She didn't know how to react, just that she wanted to get away.  He was going to leave now.  There was nothing to stop him.

“Usually, anyway,” Amari amended.

"What?" she asked.  Her voice echoed.  The room went from tight to cavernous in a heartbeat.  

“I have kept a few, at the Railroad’s request," Amari explained.  "There have been some who knew much, and were suspected to know more, even if they couldn’t access it.  They always hoped someday they’d be able to undo the encryption.” Amari shrugged.  “I suppose that doesn’t matter now.”

“What about mine?” Danse asked.  His tone was calm, but it seemed like a lie.

Amari took a breath.  Her hair fluttered. “Yours I have.”  She looked sick.  “They were important.  The only...the only…”

“The only _what_?”  She couldn’t tell who was more panicked; herself, Danse or Amari.  The air prickled with tension.

“The only….”  Amari cleared her throat.  “Courser to leave the Institute willingly.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” The words jumped out of her mouth before she could stop herself.  “Danse was a goddamn _Courser_?”  She looked over at him but he steadfastly refused to look at her.  A muscle in his jaw twitched.

“Yes,” Amari confirmed.  “One of the first.  Originally, they were created to command groups of Gen 1s and 2s when they came to the surface for supplies and raw materials.  Coursers were better suited than humans to withstand the rigors of the surface.  And sadly, were more expendable.”

“How do you know this?” Danse asked through his teeth.

“You told me,” Amari replied.  “You told us as much as you could, what wasn’t blocked from your recall before you asked us to wipe your memory.  Too much blood on your hands to remember, you said.”

Danse closed his eyes.  She reached out for him without thinking.  Just the tips of her fingers brushed his shoulders before he jerked away.  He shot her a scathing look before turning back to Amari.

“I need to see them,” he said.  “I know what you do here.  I want to see the memories.”

Amari swallowed.  “Much of it you may not be able to access,” she explained.  “Though I cannot say.  We never knew the source of the encryption.  With the Institute destroyed, I cannot say whether or not it will still be there.  But they are your brain waves, so it would be easy enough to play them back for you.”  She shook her head.  “But I don’t know that you want to do this.  You were desperate to forget.”

“Things change.”  Danse took a deep breath, squared his shoulders.  “I have to know.”

Amari looked at her, questioning.  She put her hands up and took a step back.  “Not my choice to make Amari.  If he wants to see them, let him.  And while he’s in the pod, we’re going to have a nice little chat.”

Amari frowned but acquiesced.  “Fine.  I’ll load the memories into the pod.  Best we do this in private here, not upstairs.  I expect this may be traumatic.”

“Good,” Danse snapped.  He stalked around the room and sat down hard on the couch in the corner.  A little puff of dust floated around him.  “Let me know when it’s ready.”  He crossed his arms over his chest and turned his face away from them.

“Charming,” Amari said, rolling her eyes.  She turned to the terminal and began typing, pulling up files.  She sighed.  “I suppose I can’t blame him.  We wiped his memory, but synth personalities seem more deeply imbedded.  Coursers were built for vigilance and violence.  The fact that he’s as calm as he is...it is something of a marvel.”

“A Courser.”  She shook her head.  “Jesus fucking Christ.”

Amari glanced at her knowingly before turning back to the screen.  The green letters gave her face an eerie glow.  “We didn’t know how dangerous they truly were then.  At the time, they didn’t seem entirely different than the other Gen3 synths.  Only trained better.” Amari sighed again.  If in annoyance or frustration she couldn’t tell.  “If we’d known, I’m not sure what we’d have done.  Perhaps only copied his memories and sent him to work with the Railroad directly, as we did with Glory.”

“Glory was a Courser?”

“No, no,” Amari said.  “But she has her memories intact.  She knows what she is.  And she is rather well adjusted, considering.”  She typed a few last clicks.  “Ah, and there was are.”  She stood up.  “It’s ready.”

Danse's head snapped back towards them.  She tried to meet his eyes, but he wouldn’t look at her.  He blamed her, for all this, she knew.  Even the things that happened to him before, while she was still a block of ice, he laid at her feet.  He saw her cooperation with the Railroad as damning as anything.  

He sat down and the pod and rested his head against the pillow.

“Just relax,” Amari said, clicking the button to close the lid.  He growled at her.  Amari grimaced.  The glass bubble closed over him like the lid of a coffin.  With another click of the button, Danse’s eyes glazed over and his body relaxed despite himself.  He twitched a little, fingers flexed.  Then he was still.

Amari turned to her.  “There’s a lot for him to see, even without the encrypted sections.  This will take a while.”

“Good,” she said, tearing her eyes away from Danse to look at Amari.  “We have a lot to talk about.”

 

***

 

“What does Desdemona say about this?” Amari asked incredulously.  

“Fuck Desdemona,” she said.  “I told you to stop, so you’re going to stop or I’ll have Hancock shut this place down so fast your head will spin.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“He damn well would.”  She crossed her arms over her chest.  “Hancock owes me.”

Amari’s expression couldn’t decide on a glare or a frown.  “Then what do I tell Desdemona or the other agents who come here, looking to wipe a synth’s memories?”

“You tell them to come see me,” she said.  She wouldn’t back down on this.  “If you want to overlay memories on what they have, give them a better chance at survival?  That’s fine.  But I don’t want another synth walking around the Commonwealth not knowing what they are.  It’s _wrong_.  You know, someday, they are going to figure it out.  They are going to live too long, get stuck without food or water and they are going to figure out that something isn’t right.  They’re stronger than we are, faster, smarter.  These aren’t bad things, but they’re dangerous if they don’t know.  Look at Gabriel?  In a world where the best currency is strength and violence, a synth can do terrible things.  But if they remember, if they know what they are and that people risked themselves to help them?  It gives them a reason to not turn to shit.  I don’t know that it’s going to fix things, but I’ll be damned if I stand by and let the Railroad and you keep making it worse.”

Amari did frown this time.  “I suppose it doesn’t matter much now.  There can’t be that many synths still out here, and we know there won’t be any more.”

“I wish we did know that,” she said.  “We destroyed the Institute yes, but they had a lot of secrets.  Who knows if they had other locations, other places just waiting for them should the worst happen?”

Amari shivered.  “That’s a terrifying thought.”  

“It is,” she admitted.  “It scares the…” She was cut off by a banging sound from the pod behind them.  She spun around, Amari forgotten.  Danse was still under, still glassy eyed, but his fist hit the side of the pod hard enough that his knuckles bled.  She knew it wasn’t the same as her blood, but it was close enough.  A streak of red decorated the inside of the glass.

“We should stop this,” Amari said, taking a step towards her terminal.  “I remember him.  I remember what he said, how horrified he was by what he’d done.  No one should have to experience that again.”

“No.”  She put her hand on Amari’s arm, stopping her.  “He needs to see this.  However horrible it is.”

Amari rubbed her temple.  “I’ve seen some of these memories myself, but not all of them.  I couldn’t.”  She shook her head.  “I don’t let others see the memories, even when they’ve asked, but Desdemona begged me to watch them myself, to tell her all I could.  And I lied to her.  I couldn’t bear to watch it all.  The violence, murders.  He directed the Gen1s to kill everyone in more than one settlement.  It was his job.  He brought back raw materials and not just steel and plastic.  He was tasked to bring _samples_ , flesh to study.  Animals, Super Mutants and ghouls, men, women, _children_.  It’s what finally drove him to us.”

“Fuck,” she muttered.  Her heart clenched in her chest.  Her throat felt tight.

“I can stop it,” Amari said.  “Tell him the rest is encrypted.  Before he sees more and it hurts him worse than it surely already has.”

“No,” she said again, shaking her head.  “He needs to know who he is, even if that person is a killer.  He needs to see what the Railroad saved him from.  It’s the only way.”

“The only way to what?” Amari asked.

“The only way,” she repeated.  She laid her heart bare.  “The only chance I have not to lose him.”

“You may lose him anyway, after this."  Amari’s voice was compassionate.  "I’ve seen what he’s done.  I couldn’t live with it.  It may be more than anyone could live with.”

“I believe you,” she said.  “But it’s his choice.”  She looked back at Danse.  He was pale, his face a grimace.  Blood congealed on his knuckles.  “He's lost everything.  Twice.  We’re just giving back what we can.”

“Losing something isn’t always bad,” Amari said.

“I know that, but you can’t decide that if you can’t remember what you’ve lost.”


	4. Chapter 4

_Blood.  There was so much blood._

_The settlement was eerily silent except for the mechanical sounds of the other synth’s pawing through the wreckage.  There was no idle talk, no chatter.  The screaming had stopped at least._

_At his feet lay the body of a woman.  Her arm reached out in vain toward a smaller body nearby.  The ground was saturated, black with the sticky remnants of their lives._

_It was his job to get biological samples.  He’d done it before.  Super Mutants.  Ghouls.  Dogs.  Cats. But this was the first time the scientists asked for human samples._

_A male. A female. And a child, either gender, preferably related.  Blood, skin.  Liver._

_M7-97 cringed.  It shouldn’t matter._

_It mattered._

_He didn’t eat, even though he could.  He’d learned how.  He knew how to do a lot of things, in case he had to pretend to be human.  He was glad he didn’t have to eat.  He would have been sick._

_So much death.  This couldn’t be right. How could Father want this?_

_Father was a kind man, with blue eyes and white hair and a contagious laugh.  He treated the synths like machines since that’s what they were, but he wasn’t unkind.  He patted M7’s shoulder before he relayed to the surface._

_“Do us proud son,” he said._

_M7 was proud just to exist in that moment._ _Now, he wanted to die._

_He shouldn’t want anything.  He should only want what they told him to want.  He was a machine, not a man, even if he looked like one._

_There was blood splattered on his hands and more to come as he knelt down next to the woman’s body.  He was to take the syringe, find the big vein on her neck and take the sample.  60 ccs of blood.  A scalpel for 2 square centimeters of skin from a sun exposed place, ideally her face. 1 cubic centimeter of liver._

_He dropped the syringe into the dirt.  He ran his hand over her face and closed her eyes instead._

_Enough._

_If Father wanted this, he didn’t want to be his son anymore._

Danse’s hand hit the glass of the pod and his knuckles split open.  He didn’t feel a thing. 


	5. Chapter 5

Danse stumbled out of the pod and barely kept his feet under him.  She watched from the doorway, afraid to come any closer.  Amari didn’t have the same fear and quickly hit him with a stimpack.  He wobbled a bit and then steadied.  His eyes were closed, his head hung.  

“Are you alright?” Amari asked.

“No.”  His voice was thick.

“Sorry,” Amari said quickly.  “Let’s make sure you’re physically alright at least.”  She tried to touch him and he jerked away from her, stumbling back and almost tripped over the pod.

“I’m fine,” he said as he tried to regain his balance.  Amari grabbed his elbow and refused to let go.

“You aren’t fine.” Amari wasn’t going to be refused.  “Come with me and sit before you hurt yourself.”  She ushered him to the couch and insisted he sit.  “This is disorienting the first time, even if the memories are pleasant. Rest here and I’ll get you some water.”

“I don’t need water,” he snapped at her.  “I’m a goddamn synth.”

Amari threw her hands up.  “Fine,” she said.  “Though I know for a fact that both food and water are beneficial to Gen3 synths, I’m not going to press the issue.”  She turned and stalked towards the door.  “You deal with him,” Amari shot at her as she walked past and disappeared up the stairs.

She, on the other hand, didn’t move.  She just leaned her hip against the doorway and waited.  Danse hung his head and stared at his hands laying palms up in his lap.

“I am surprised they aren’t stained,” he muttered.  “I’m a fucking monster.”

She paused for a few breaths before she spoke.  He had done monstrous things; they both had.  But that didn't make him a monster.  She wanted to tell him he was wrong, but she knew that wasn’t going to help.  “Do you want to talk about it?”

Danse looked up at her.  His face was stricken. “No...yes.” He shook his head.  “I don’t know.”

She took a chance and crossed the room towards him.  It wasn’t so different from the night at Red Rocket, just less bloody.  Even so, he seemed just as dangerous, if not to her health, at least to her heart.  The look on his face was killing her.  Whatever had broken between them, she couldn’t stop caring.  Whatever he thought now, whatever he knew that he didn’t before, as far as she was concerned, he was still the same man he’d always been.  

She knew he was broken when she fell in love with him.  This didn’t change anything.

“I saw him,” he said as she approached.  “Your son.  I knew him.”

She swallowed hard.  “Not surprising.”  

“I looked up to him; we all did.  Right until the end.” Danse’s voice cracked.  “I killed for him.”

“So did I,” she said.  She sat down on the couch beside him, but not too close, leaving half a length of cushion between them.  “And then I killed him.”

“I should have done it,” he said.  “Instead of running away.  But I just took down the other synths in my patrol and ran.” He shook his head in indignation.  “It’s probably why they didn’t look for me harder.  I’m sure they assumed I was dead. I wonder who they blamed.”

“Does it matter?” She asked.

He looked up at her.  His eyes were bleary.  “Hard to say.  Depends on if they meted out punishment or not.  More blood on my hands.”

“The Commonwealth makes killers of us all.”

“Maybe, but not like this.”

She didn’t bother with platitudes.  There was nothing she could say that was going to comfort him.  She could feel it in her bones.  She ached to touch him, to slide over closer and take him in her arms and do what he did for her and for Haylen.  He was falling apart and she wanted to hold him together.  

She didn’t dare move.

“I saw them too,” he continued.  “The Railroad.  When I thought I was out of options, there they were.  They took me in, despite everything I’d done and they helped me.”  He grunted the saddest laugh she’d ever heard.  “And I repaid them by joining the Brotherhood and setting out to destroy them, for doing that exact thing.”

“That’s because you didn’t know.  It was wrong.  They were wrong.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” he said.  “Nothing makes sense anymore.”

“Never really did, but I think we’ve had this conversation before.”  She resisted the urge to elaborate.  Last time, they ended up naked in a ball on the floor.  She couldn’t think of anyway that was the right solution now.

He snorted.  He remembered too.  “That was a better day.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “God, I’m sorry I dragged you into this.”

“Don’t be sorry, Danse,” she said.  She turned, shifted a little closer, her knees pointing towards him.  “I know that things are different now.  But I wouldn’t trade knowing you for anything.”

“You can’t mean that,” he said.  He turned towards her and his knee brushed against hers.  “There’s no way-”

“I mean it,” she said, cutting him off.  “I understand if you hate me.  I hate me too. But I still love you.  If it hadn’t been for you, I would have given up.”

“I can’t even picture you giving up on anything.”

She gave him a half smile.  “I suppose not.  I'm still here, aren’t I?”

He frowned.  “I don’t know how to feel about anything, you included.  The Brotherhood, Maxson, he was right about a lot of things.” Danse shook his head.  “But maybe he was wrong too.”

She tried to hide her shock, but she was positive she failed.   

“The Railroad is misguided but they tried to help when no one else would.”  He exhaled hard.  “I can’t believe I said that. But it’s true.”  Tentatively, he reached out and put his hand on her knee.  “You too.  I can’t forget what happened; The Prydwen, Maxson, Haylen. But I know why you felt you had to do it.  I don’t know what to do with all of this.”

She put her hand over his and he didn’t pull away.  “Just give it some time,” she said.  “Let’s get a room at the Rexford and just lay low for a few days.  Rest, have some whiskey.  Let it sink in before you do anything, okay?  If you still want to leave afterwards, I’ll help you.  I’ll talk to Daisy, have her set you up with of the caravans heading to the Capital Wasteland.  And if you decide to stay, I’ll help you then too.  Whatever you need.”

“I have to figure that out first.”  

“I know, I’m not going anywhere.”  She squeezed his hand.  He closed his eyes.

“Thank you.”

Sweeter words were never spoken.

 

***

 

Hotel Rexford was a dump, but it was warm and dry and as safe as any place in Goodneighbor.  The only place safer was the State House.  With Hancock still in Sanctuary, she didn’t want to deal with Fahrenheit and the rest on her own.  At the Hotel, they could be somewhat anonymous at least.

There was only one room open and she wasn’t sad about it.  She didn’t like the idea of leaving him alone, with even just a wall between them.  She’d slept on plenty of floors in the last few months, she could do it again.

Technically, he didn’t have to sleep.  But he always did because he once thought he was a man and that’s what men did.  He tried to tell her he didn’t need it, but she got him to lay down on the bed anyway and he was asleep in moments.  

She curled herself up in a chair nearby and played Zeta Invaders on her Pipboy with the volume turned off.  It was either that or watch him sleep and that was going to make her crazy.  She was watching him enough at it was.  She’d lost three games already, distracted by his eyes moving behind his lids, the way the dim light shadowed his face.  

After a few hours, her vision started to blur.  It was only a little past sunset, but she was exhausted.  She clicked the screen off and unhooked the buckles, setting the Pipboy on the table beside her.  She blew out the flame in the lamp and let the wan light of the sunset illuminate the room.  She leaned her head back against the back of the chair and closed her eyes.

It seemed like only a minute had passed when she was startled awake.  She opened her eyes and looked around wildly, finding the room bathed in cool blue moonlight.  Danse was thrashing on the bed, his legs twitching.  He was groaning in pain.  She jumped to her feet, trying not to trip over herself.  She fell to her knees beside the bed.

“Danse?” She said, softly, reaching out toward him.  The moment her fingers touched him, he grabbed her wrist and yanked her forward.  He flipped her over him and had her pinned against the wall before she knew was happening.  His forearm was across her throat hard enough that it was a struggle to breathe.  His eyes were open. She could see the whites of his eyes but he didn’t seem to see her.

“I should kill you,” he growled.  “I should kill you for everything you’ve done.”  He snarled.  “ _Father._ ”

Her heart thumped hard and she fought for a breath.  “Danse!” She croaked.  Her voice was high pitched, breathless.  “It’s me.”

He pressed down harder.  Then, he blinked a few times. Shook his head.  Recognition washed over his face and he recoiled away from her, just barely staying in the bed.  “Oh my god,” he gasped.  “What did I do?”

She swallowed.  Rubbed her throat.  “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay; I could have killed you!” The volume of his voice rose sharply.

She grabbed his arm and when he tried to pull away she just tightened her grip.  “No and I’m fine.  It was a nightmare.  I'm just startled.”

“I hurt you.” He sounded agonized.

“But you didn’t.  You stopped.”

He let out a breath.  “I should go, before I-”

“Don’t you dare.”  It wasn’t a suggestion.  She meant it as a command.  His forearm tensed under her fingers and then accepting defeat, relaxed.  She knew she was hardly strong enough to hold him there if he really wanted to go.  She would have been hard pressed if he was human.  And maybe she’d taken down her share of Coursers, but she did that with a rifle, not her bare hands.  

Danse hung his head.  She could feel him shaking.  “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” she said.  She pulled on his arm a little and he shifted his weight back into the bed from his precarious perch on the edge.  She'd been trying to give him whatever space he needed, but right now, she knew words weren’t going to comfort him.  She wasn’t afraid of him.  He’d had the opportunity to kill her more than once.  He fired his laser rifle at her but she knew he didn’t have to miss.  He wanted her to kill him, she knew that now.  But it was the last thing she wanted to do.  She wanted to make sure he knew it too.  He needed to know she wasn’t frightened.  “Come here.”  Her voice was soft, almost a whisper.

He hesitated for a moment and then let her move him.  He curled up against her, his cheek on her shoulder, his short beard rubbing against her collarbone when he put his face into her neck.  She put her arms around him and just hung on.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered again.

“I’m sorry too,” she replied.  “For everything.”

She didn’t dare move or speak.  She just held him.  He shivered for a while, his hand shaking until he gave in and wrapped it around her waist.  Eventually, the trembling subsided.  His breath slowed and the frantic pace of his heartbeat became regular and rhythmic.  She could feel his body relax as he drifted off.

“I love you,” she whispered.  She know he didn’t hear her, but she could only hope those words would make for better dreams.


	6. Chapter 6

She wasn’t sure how long they slept like that.  She woke a few times when one of them moved.  Once, Danse whimpered in his sleep and she pulled him closer running her fingers through his hair until he quieted again.  She felt helpless, but he calmed every time she comforted and at least that was something.

She did this to him, by finding out who he was.  She’d regret it but if she hadn’t, most certainly he would have died when she destroyed the Prydwen.  But he would have died believing he was a man, dying for what he thought he believed in, even if it was wrong.

 _Was that better or worse? God, she didn’t even know._  But his heart -- maybe it was artificial, but it sure felt like a heart -- beating against hers as they slept tangled together?  It wasn’t fair.  None of it.

This entire world was bullshit.

She finally drifted off again and dreamt about Shaun.  Not the old man in the Institute, but the little boy he never got to be. She dreamt of the little boy synth she took with her before the Institute went up in smoke.  

She imagined picnics under trees with leaves and grass that was soft under their feet.  He was a synth so it just stood to reason Danse should be his father.

It was a ridiculous fantasy but dreams were like that.  She smiled in her sleep.

She woke to the sound of a fusion cell being loaded into a rifle. She startled awake in a flash and scrambled for the pistol she kept beside the bed only to find she hadn’t put in there. She knocked her Pipboy off the table instead and it hit the wood floor with a sickening crunch.  She reached for it, just managing not to tumble out of the bed but Danse got to it first.  He picked it up off the floor and looked the computer over carefully, inspecting it for damage.  She chanced a look up at him.

His coat was on.  His hair was combed.  His laser rifle was strapped to his back.  

He offered her the Pipboy, his face utterly neutral.  “You should be more careful,” he said.  She took it from him gingerly as he added, “Some things can’t be repaired.”

Her stomach clenched.  “Thanks,” she managed.  She stared at the screen, uncracked, undamaged by the fall and clasped it around her arm.  She hit the power button and it flared to life, green letters flicking across the screen as it booted up.  Danse was quiet until she finally gathered her wits to look up at him again.

He blinked at her.  “I’m leaving.”

“Why?” She blurted it out without thinking as she did entirely too often. She wanted to swallow the word again.   _Why?_ Fuck. She could hardly think of a reason _why not_ and she wanted nothing more than for him to stay. “I mean,” she tried to backtrack, “Why now? Where are you going?”

He shrugged in a graceful motion, more at ease than he’d seemed since before...everything.  “I haven’t decided. Maybe the Capital Wasteland. Maybe nowhere.  I don’t know.”

“But you can’t just…” She considered, tried again.  “At least let me…”  She failed.  Frowned.  Gave up and just said what she wanted to say.  She could blame it on sleep later.  “Please,” she said.  “Don’t go.”

There was a faintest flicker of expression across his face.  When it passed, he was emotionless again.  Maybe that perpetual crease between his eyebrows was a little deeper.  “Is that for me or for you?”

She opened her mouth, but then realized she didn’t know what to say.  Was it really what was best for him, or did she just not want him to go?

“Well?” His voice was soft but it seemed too loud.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

“That’s...one reason I have to go,” Danse said.  He frowned.  “I don’t know who I am, and neither do you.  And it does matter, it _should_ matter.  If it doesn’t matter?” He made a sounds like a laugh; a sad, broken laugh.  “No sex is that good.”

She wished she could laugh.  He didn’t say things like that often and she hated missing it.  She tried to muster up a smile but it felt like a grimace.  She nodded, trying to take in the idea that he was going to walk out the door without her.  

“I just...I want you to know that you’re always welcome to come back.  I hope-” She cut herself off and swallowed those begging selfish words.  She didn’t want that to be the last thing she said to him.  “You know what I hope,” she settled on, not willing to lie about it either.  “Be careful.”

Danse actually smiled this time.  The corners of his eyes crinkled as he patted the buttstock of his rifle over his shoulder.  “I always am.”  He turned towards the door and she had to grab on to the mattress to stop herself from getting up.  Danse took a half step, stopped and turned back around again.  His face wasn’t neutral anymore.  The tension that always seemed to radiate off him was lessened, his shoulders were relaxed.  But his eyebrows drew up in the middle and drooped on the corners.  His eyes weren’t cold like they’d been, but dark and warm and maybe a little regretful instead.  

He leaned over and kissed the crown of her head, his fingers flexing on the back of her skull.  His lips lingered for just a heartbeat too long.  He nodded when he stood up again, squaring his shoulders, taking a deep breath.

“Thank you,” he said.  “For bringing me here and for sparing my life.”  He smiled on one side of his mouth.  “I wasn’t so sure how I felt about that last night, but maybe now?  Maybe I can go out there and make a real life for myself. Not one orchestrated by someone else.  Who knows where I’ll end up.  Maybe California; maybe right back here.”  He shrugged again and his smile moved to the other side of his mouth.  “But it’ll be my choice.”

Without another word, Danse turned and walked out the door.  He paused with this back to her in the doorway, silhouetted by the light from the hallway.  Time seemed to stretch out and her heart pounded in her chest.

_Maybe he’s having second thoughts and he’s going to turn around and come back in here and_

He stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind him with a click.  

She stared at the door, blank faced, still.  Without looking down, she flipped the switch of her Pipboy.  The last strains of 'Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall' faded away.  Travis’s voice crackled over the background noise.  She wasn’t listening at first.

“I didn’t used to be good at this job, let’s be honest,” Travis said, and that got her attention.  His voice was smooth and confident now.  Everyone commented on it.  He went on, talking about how his friends taught him he was worrying about the wrong things in life.  She smiled faintly.  That whole debacle had been a complete cock up, nearly getting Travis and Vadim both killed.  But in the end, it had been worth it.  He was a new person; a happier one.  She went out of her way to help him.   She did it all that time.

Travis was grateful for what she did for him and he told the entire Commonwealth about it on the radio.

Listening to him thank her for her help, she finally started to cry.


	7. Chapter 7

As much as she wanted to just curl up in a ball and cry until she couldn’t anymore, that was an insult to herself and to him.  Falling apart wasn’t in her vocabulary.  She wiped off her face with the back of her hand and spent a while staring at the first hints of grey morning light coming through the window.  

Either he’d come back, or he wouldn’t.  It was out of her hands.

She grabbed her coat off the floor and heard the distinctive _ting_ of metal hitting the floor.  She cringed. _Dog tags._  She picked up the beaded chain gingerly, plucking at it with the tips of her fingers like it was a potentially venomous snake.  She let the tags swing back and forth, spinning, twisting the chain and untwisting again.  She didn’t need to look, but she knew she was going to.  She cradled the thin stamped metal plates in the palm of her hand.

_Paladin Danse_

_Recon Team Gladius_

_Religion: Atheist_

_Blood type: AB+_

Funny that a synth would have such an rare blood type, wasn’t it? Probably on purpose. She distracted herself with debating if synths could give blood transfusions to humans.   _Fucking Institute._  That would be just like them.  She let a variety of less than complimentary thoughts about the Institute meander through her head as she made her way down to the lobby.

She almost didn’t notice that she looped the tags over her head until the steel clicked against the buckles on her leather armor.  She tucked them inside her shirt.  She could get rid of them later.  Or maybe just put them in her safe in Sanctuary.

He might want them back.  She bit the inside of her cheek in frustration.

She passed the door where she’d nearly tripped over the Vault-Tec rep, two hundred years of rejection spelled out across his almost unrecognizable face.  He lived in Sanctuary now, ran the general store.  He smiled a lot.  He was handsome in his own way, sort of like Hancock.  Something about that unexpected ghoul skin made whatever was inside shine all the brighter.  The corner of her mouth twitched despite herself.

Better to remind herself why she did all this bullshit.  Better to not forget the people who were better off because of her. And if her heart felt like absolute garbage?  She did the right thing regardless.  

 _Fuck_ , she hoped so anyway.  This hurt too much to have been for nothing.

She tried to ignore the few souls in the lobby and headed straight for the door.  She wanted out of Goodneighbor. There were plenty of fires to put out, disasters to avert and all sorts of other useful good deeds she ought to be doing.

She practically tripped over Deacon.

“Hey boss,” he drawled, deftly shifting out of the way before leaning too casually against the wall.  He was smart enough not to say anything else.

“There you are,” MacCready said.  “We thought you forgot about us.”

“Speak for yourself kid,” Hancock interjected.  “I’m unforgettable.”

She closed her eyes and smirked.  She was mad and proud of herself for doing it.  Life went on. Some things didn’t change.  She took a deep breath and opened her eyes.  Hancock tipped his hat at her.

“How you doing sister?”

She snorted.  “I have had better days.”

Deacon cleared his throat but stayed silent. Hancock looked sympathetic.  MacCready looked slightly bored.

“Well, we’ve got a nice fat distraction for you,” Hancock said, “Though I can’t say it’s going to improve your day any.  Might have improved mine, but I’m trying not to think about it too hard.”

She raised an eyebrow.  “Oh this has got to be good.”

“Good?” MacCready sniffed.  “Doubt that’s the word.”

“So what is it? Where’s the fire?”  

Hancock’s lips looked thinner than usual.  MacCready helpfully looked at the ceiling.  Deacon inspected his fingernails.  These guys were the fucking Three Stooges and they were suddenly as silent as church mice.  There was no way this could be anything but a disaster.

She gave Deacon a pointed look.  Frightening that she was looking to the liar to clarify things.

“Yeah, about that. You up for a visit to Diamond City?” Deacon’s expression was a bland as white bread.

“Oh shit, now what?”

“Sturges was sorting through the rest of the Institute data; the holotape you nicked from the Brotherhood.  Apparently Piper was right.  McDonough is a synth or at least so their records say.  Has been for years,” Deacon explained.

She looked at Hancock.  He looked a little sick.  His own brother, replaced by a synth?   _Goddamn._  And she thought she felt fucked up.

“We were thinking about what to do about it and Piper wasn’t waiting around.  She ran off half-cocked and full of piss.  We thought we’d grab you first, but we figured we have all the bases covered.  We know replacement synths have the memories of the people they replaced, so Hancock can try talking to him.  I’ll offer what the Railroad can do.”  Deacon frowned.  “And if it goes to shit, Mac can put one between his eyes before he does anything stupid.”

Going to save or put down a synth. Totally distracting if by distracting they meant _was going to keep her thinking about Danse_.  She tried not to groan and failed.  

“It has to be done or we’ll probably have to dig Piper a hole, won’t we?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“Likely,” Hancock replied, matter-of-fact. “If it’s any consolation, I feel about as enthusiastic as you do.”

“Let’s go,” she said.  She rolled her shoulders.  With a silent sigh, she pushed the doors open on creaking hinges and with that sharp splintery sound of old, dry wood.  The air smelled damp in the street.  Her elbow ached in protest.

It was going to storm.  

She pulled a few packs of Rad-X out of her pouch.  She handed one to Deacon and another to MacCready before downing a dose of the bitter liquid herself.  It slid down like vomiting in reverse, burning her throat in its wake.  Her stomach groused at her.  Hancock straightened the collar on his frock coat and it immediately fell down again.

She wondered if Danse would find somewhere to get out of the rain.

 

***

Naturally, it all went to shit.

By the time they got to Diamond City, they narrowly prevented Danny Sullivan from bleeding out in the street.  She heard Piper’s shrill screaming from the elevator.  Her heart was pounding and her eyes narrowed.  Deacon reluctantly pulled his pistol.  The safety clicked off on her rifle. MacCready looked excited.  She pushed the elevator button.  Hancock took a hit of jet.

When the dust settled, the synth that called himself McDonough was dead.  

Hancock looked at what he’d thought was his brother’s body for a few minutes and then shrugged.  He said very little but then turned away.  It was what he did.  Shoot first and sort the rest of it out later with a bottle of whiskey and a tin of mentats.  Sometimes, she really envied him.  She sent them all out after him, told them to send security in to clean up the body but to give her a minute first.  

They did what she asked.  They always did.  She never gave them a reason to doubt her.  

She crouched down next to McDonough.  She supposed it wasn’t really _McDonough_ but it was the only name he’d ever had, even if he wasn’t the original.  And he was already dead.  No point in quibbling about it now.  There was a pool of blood on the floor, red as any human’s, and the tips of her boots made prints in the viscous puddle.  MacCready’s shot hadn’t been one of his best, hitting him right above the ear and knocking a piece of his skull off.  It was Hancock’s shotgun that had finally finished him off with a hole blasted through the middle of his chest.

With gentle fingers, she tilted McDonough’s head to the side and peered at the gore.  She’d seen plenty of corpses in the last few months.  This one didn’t look much different. _Skin, bone, blood._  But there it was, curling out of the grey matter -- wires.  Looked a lot like the neural interface she pulled out of Kellogg’s head.  

She grabbed the wires and pulled.  Before the war, she probably would have been sick.  Now, she noted the wet sound, the eerie tearing sensation but her body didn’t respond.  She was detached, even with sticky cooling blood caking up under her fingernails.  She lifted the metal component up to the light, wiping away the blood and brain matter to get a better look at it.  

Someday, she’d take it to Amari and ask her what it was for.  Maybe there was information inside it, something they could use to find some of the remaining Institute loyal forces sure to be hiding on the surface.  

Today, she wondered if there was something like it inside Danse’s head.  Maybe she could blame it for driving him away.  She stood and tucked it in her pocket, not caring what was stuck to it.  Didn’t matter.  McDonough was dead and the real one had been for years.  He didn’t need that little chunk of brain anyway.  

 _Poor Hancock._  He said _I’ve been angry at this bastard for years for all the wrong reasons._  

She could relate.

Danse ultimately blamed her didn’t he?  But it wasn’t her fault what happened to him or to the Brotherhood.  She didn’t have a choice.  If she’d let them, they would have killed all the synths, even the free ones.  They would have turned on the ghouls next -- and not the feral ones -- but people like those great guys at The Slog, like her smiling Vault-Tec rep, like her friend Hancock who made terrible mixed drinks and told worse jokes but always had her back.  Maxson was crazy, wasn’t he?  She knew there was good reason to be afraid; she joined them for a reason after all.  But Desdemona said they would come after the Railroad, kill them all and it seemed entirely too likely.  They almost made her kill Danse after all, despite everything he’d done for them.  They would never have let him go, if she hadn’t threatened to leave.  She saved him, not only once, but by ending the threat once and for all..

_Right?_

She stalked out of the mayor’s office, the synth component conspicuously poking her with each step from inside her pocket.  It didn’t hurt.  Like in some movie, lightning cracked in the distance and the threatening greasy radioactive rain finally started to fall.  It wasn't a sign.  That shit only happened in stories.

She lied to herself some more; it was easier that way.


	8. Chapter 8

Time was such a pain in the ass.  

When there was something dire, some hot deadline, someone to rescue and pull asscheeks first out of the proverbial lion’s den, it whipped by so fast it was hard to keep up.  But now, when she longed for a fat wad of days to pass between the hotel room in Goodneighbor and today, it crept by so slowly it was agonizing.  She could almost feel the gentle press of Danse’s lips on her forehead still.

It hadn’t been long enough.  It had been much too long.

Four months, give or take a few days or two hundred years.  Codsworth told her it was October when she woke up.  It was August when the Institute went up in flames.  Apparently it was January now.  It was really hard to tell.

Before the war and the bombs, the seasons were predictable.  Spring, summer, fall, winter.  No problem.  But now? There was a little variation; the days got longer and shorter but overall, the weather didn’t vary all that much.  

They even broke the fucking weather, those cocksuckers.

It was hard to tell time was passing at all, except her hair got longer and it was slightly less awkward to spend time with the synth that thought he was her son.  It was incredibly uncomfortable when she first came back to Sanctuary, that stupid metal thing she tore out of McDonough’s head bruising her hip the entire way.  She couldn’t cope with how many of the people she knew weren’t exactly people.  But now, it was just normal. Normal-ish anyway.  She tried not to think about it.

Hancock stayed in Goodneighbor, probably to mourn for his brother.  She was impressed with how well he was holding up, how well he pushed away regrets.  Deacon headed to Railroad HQ after she gave him an earful about what was no longer an option.  No more memory erasing.  Never again.  Synths need to know who they are and what people did for them.  That’s what makes a real person, dealing with all the trauma and bullshit life hands you.  Deacon was too smart to argue with her, but she had no idea what he was going to tell Desdemona.  She didn’t much care.  She’d burn the Memory Den to the ground before she let it happen again.

Hancock was resilient but Deacon regretted a lot of things.  She knew how he felt.  

It had been a quiet evening.  Shaun had a hot plate torn apart and spread across the table in a jumble of pieces.  He was looking at each piece, absorbing what it did, what it was made out of.  Not really any different than any other boy.  Not any different than she imagined her human son would have been, had he not been turned into a fucking monster.

She wondered if Shaun would grow up.  Did synth bodies age and grow?  They were flesh and they did all the things human bodies do, so why not grow up?  She had to cut Shaun’s hair once already.  She wondered if he’d be tall, like Nate.

She hoped for it and against it in a single breath.  But in the end, it didn’t really matter what she wanted.  It was going to happen or not, just like everything else these days.  No point in planning for tomorrow when you are as likely to get a super mutant to the face as wake up.

Fatalism aside, it was a nice night, especially for what passed for winter these days.  It was cool; she was guessing 45 degrees or so.  Cold enough that it was quiet outside, most everyone retreating indoors.  She had a book, something about Boston history that Hancock gave her from his stash of things that weren’t chems.  She wasn’t really reading it, just looking at the letters, the pattern of the paragraphs.  

She ended up staring out the window, just a hole in the wall with a vinyl curtain she could close if it rained or she was naked.  Piper and Preston wandered by, talking too quietly for her to hear.  She was probably pestering him for Minuteman stories.  With the Institute gone and her sudden popularity at being right making papers fly off the shelves, she had to follow it up with something good. She said she was going back to Diamond City every day, but she was still here.

MacCready too, though that was more surprising. She figured he’d go back to his son now that it was over. But then again, she understood why he didn’t.  A nice, normal family had taken him in, one with a farm and who didn’t make their living from killing people.

Preston could give her all the titles he wanted to, but that is what she did.  She killed raiders, ferals…. She grunted aloud, _The entire fucking Brotherhood of Steel._  Shaun looked up from his wires and cocked his head as he inspected her expression.  His small hands lay silently on the worn surface of the table.  The corners of his mouth tipped down a little.

“I miss him too,” Shaun said.  She felt an ache blooming out from between her shoulder blades.  She didn’t dare speak.  “He was like me,” Shaun continued.  “Except he only remembered being a kid.  Must have been sad, not to have a mom.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat.  Her mom had been dead for centuries, had been dead already when the bombs fell, but she understood.  It would have been very sad to not have a mom.  Fucking Railroad didn’t even give Danse a memory of one.  

That ache foundered into anger.  She set her book down in her lap.

“Promise me something Shaun,” she said.

“Of course mom,” he replied quickly.  “What is it?”

“Don’t ever forget who you are, no matter how hard it might be someday.”

He looked perplexed, but he nodded.  “Okay mom.”  He shrugged.  “How do you forget who you are anyway?”

“A lot easier than you think sweetheart,” she said.  Her throat was almost too tight to talk.  “It’s very easy.”

 

***

 

Five months.

She went whole days without thinking about Danse.  She found an old bike in the scrap heap at the Red Rocket station.  Sturges made it work.  She taught Shaun how to ride it.

Eight months.

She went on something that looked like a date with Hancock, though she knew that would never go anywhere.  She adored him and the feeling was mutual, but he wasn’t the settle down type.  That was what she wanted.  They parted with a kiss, but that was the end of it.   A week later, he left Sanctuary with Cait.  Cait winked at her.    

Ten months.

Piper finally went back to Diamond City and Preston went with her.  Shaun built a little robot out of spare parts.  It made her eyelid twitch.  Had they implanted something into his head, something to make him build all new synths, even after the Institute was gone?   When it didn’t work, she was relieved and disappointed.

Twelve.

She tried to stop counting, but a year rolled around and she couldn’t help it. She measured Shaun against the mark she made on the wall.  He was taller.

_Damn.  He was going to grow up after all._

She kissed Shaun goodnight and pulled the covers up over his narrow chest.  She sat next to him for a long while, brushing his hair back from his forehead.  His eyes closed and he drifted off, rolling on to his side, curling his now longer legs up a little bit.  

She loved him.  She’d be back.

With Sturges and Mama Murphy looking out for him, she knew he’d be fine for a little while, but she didn’t have the heart to tell him.  She was afraid he’d try to follow her.  Maybe he was a synth, but he was as tenacious as she was even so.  He was the son she was supposed to have.

She found Danse’s holotags in the bottom of the chest where she stashed them.  

She went southeast.  She knew she couldn’t follow him, because she didn’t know where Danse went.  For all she knew, he marched out into the Glowing Sea and was still there.  But she’d been avoiding even considering it; she was avoiding everything.  She’d visited the Castle a few times, sent her new crop of Minutemen out to do what she used to do but mostly she stayed safely inside Sanctuary with this impossible hope that he’d just come strolling back in one day.

She knew he wasn’t going to come back on his own.  Too much pride.  Too stubborn.  Even if he wanted to come back, she just knew he wouldn’t.

She needed this, the road under her boots, blisters and sore muscles.  She needed to talk to people. She needed to try.  Maybe someone had seen him.  Maybe no one had.  It was just as likely she’d come back home with nothing to show for it.  But it had to be done, or she was going to keep counting the passage of time until she went crazy.  One last road trip with Danse’s tags around her neck.  If she found nothing, she was going to throw his tags into the Atlantic and come home to start over again.

She managed to survive losing Nate and Shaun.  She could survive this too.  But she went to hell and back for Shaun too.  It was only fair she gave Danse one last chance.

The pale glow of Sanctuary disappeared behind her.  The scrape of her boots in the dirt echoed.  Those steel holotags around her neck were cold at first, but after a while, her skin made them warm.

 


	9. Chapter 9

It was lonely, without Shaun.  She missed Sturges and Mama Murphy and her stories, even though she told the same ones over and over again.  She missed her bed, her bathtub, her tiny collection of books.  Her feet hurt.

But her body felt good overall; strong again, ready.  She wasn’t going to let herself languish in one place that long again.  That was her life before the war; soft and comfortable.  But she was never meant for that life.  She just didn’t realize it at the time.  

There were rumors.  

She wasn’t sure if people actually saw Danse.  Maybe they were just telling her what she wanted to hear, but some of it seemed legitimate.  Cricket had a scuffed laser pistol she said he sold her in exchange for a hunting rifle and some .308 rounds.  It had a patch of paint scraped off, right where the Brotherhood of Steel markings would have been.  Maybe it was his, maybe not.  She bought it back anyway, just in case.

She was going to the airport, to the wreckage of the Prydwen.  There was bound to be salvage, things that scavengers wouldn’t have known to bother with.  She knew the rest of the Brotherhood was bound to come looking someday.  If they weren’t crazy like Maxson, she wanted to talk to them, to make peace.  If they were crazy, she wanted to be prepared.  Might be something worth learning in the debris.

That’s what she told herself anyway.  

She also wanted to revel in her guilt.  She needed to feel it, suffer it so she could finally let go.  There were good people she killed.  She missed some of them.  She liked Teagan, Haylen, even Rhys but they wouldn’t or couldn’t see what Maxson had become.  She wanted to weep for her lost friends, killed in the name of the greater good.

She made a promise to herself.  If she hadn’t found Danse by then or any real concrete sign of him, she was going to leave his tags there and go home.  Maybe he should have hated the Brotherhood when they sentenced him to death, but she knew he didn't.  He loved them as much as he hated himself.  She knew a part of him wished he’d never found out what he was and that he had a chance to die with them.  

She’d leave his tags and go home and forget him.

She was stalling, taking the scenic, dangerous route to get there.  She would do it, but that didn’t mean she was going to like it.  Those tags were a comforting presence around her neck.  She was loathe to let them go.

Her fingernails were dirty.  Her hair was a mess.  She had just taken down four raider assholes who’d earned every bullet she put into them.  She sat on a crate with faded lettering on the side from the Gwinett brewery.  She breath was still ragged as she tried to clear her rifle.  The thing jammed too often and she knew it needed a new barrel, but she was attached.  There were hash marks on the barrel, one for each super mutant she took down in Fort Strong.  Danse had salvaged it from the armory and bought it to her afterwards.  He was so proud.  Her fingers stopped, running over the shallow ridges scored in the metal.

 _There's no one I'd rather smash Super Mutant skulls with._   She almost smiled.  Such a romantic.

She managed to clear the jam but the bullet slipped out of her fingers and clattered to the ground. It bounced off a piece of shattered concrete and rolled into a pile of junk.  She gave the mess of offal a sideways look.  .308 rounds were hard to come by.  She was going to have to dig it out of there.  Good thing she was already filthy.

She knelt down next to the pile, hands on her thighs.  The broken concrete was still warm from the sun of the afternoon.  Heat seeped through the worn fabric of her pants.  She ran her dirty fingers through her hair.  Grimacing, she felt around under the ledge of uprooted pavement.  She felt paper, dirt, dead grass and then something squishy.  She managed not to recoil and tried to resist shuddering. Goosebumps involuntarily rose on her skin.  She dug in deeper, not thinking about it more than she had to.  Her nail bumped against the cool, distinctive metal casing.  She inched her fingers forward, trying not to send it skittering out of her reach. She almost had it.

That’s when she heard the footsteps and instinct kicked in.  

She abandoned her search and grabbed her pistol out of the holster on her thigh.  She flipped over, sending gravel flying.  Clicking off the safety with her thumb, she aimed blindly toward the noise.  Her finger trembled on the edge of the trigger guard. The sun blinded her.  All she could see was a dark silhouette.  A man.  

_Not a super mutant or a feral.  Could be just as dangerous.  Maybe more._

She blinked hard, willing her eyes to adjust. He didn’t have a weapon drawn.  She remembered to take a breath but adrenaline held her tongue.  Her eyes watered.

“Not the welcome I was expecting.”  

 _That voice.  Jesus Christ was that…._ “Danse?”  She lowered her pistol, wiped her sleeve across her eyes.  

“Yes,” he said.

She blinked again. “My god."  Her voice cracked.  "Where have you been?”   _Why wouldn’t her eyes stop watering?_  “What are you doing here?”

He made a sound that was almost a chuckle but far too sad.  “Looking for you.”  He held out a hand to help her to her feet.  "Guess I found you."  

She let him pull her up, but winced when he let go again immediately.  He wasn’t in Power Armor, but he might as well have been for as big as he seemed to her.  She imagined this moment a million different ways, but none like this.  She thought she’d want to grab him; that she would be overjoyed or angry or something in between.  Instead, her fingers felt numb.  

She slid her pistol back in the holster so she had something to do with her hands, so she could stop looking.   _No touching._  She wasn’t even sure she wanted to.  She felt a tear roll out of the corner of her eye and she batted at it irritably.  Her fingers felt grimy against her face.

“It’s been a year,” she said.  Her voice was curiously emotionless.  “I never thought I’d see you again.”

His brow furrowed.  “I heard you were looking for me.”

“I was; I am,” she said.  Her voice was strained.  She swallowed.  “But I didn’t think I’d actually find you.”  She looked at her feet.   _Damn sun was too bright._  “I was just sitting there, waiting for something I thought was never going to happen.  So I came out here to-” She cleared her throat again. “-to say goodbye.”

There was a long pause.  The sun dipped a little lower toward the horizon taking the glare with it, but her eyes were still wet.   _Goddamn this was too familiar._ They’d been here before.  Her back ached between her shoulder blades.  

She thought it was getting better; the wound was healing but then he just walked back in and tore off the scab.  She wanted nothing more than to see him again; she wished he hadn’t found her.  It felt like she was bleeding.  She blinked at him, willing the tears away.  Danse was frowning but not the angry, disapproving look she expected.  

“Do you want me to go?” he asked, his voice lower, broken.

“Oh my god, no.”  She replied too fast, eyebrows darting up, her hand grabbing his arm without thinking.  “No.”

He tried to smile.  “I tried to come back,” he began, “but every time I’d get close to Sanctuary….”  He shook his head.  “My pride wouldn’t let me do it.  I never even left the Commonwealth.  I got to the edge of the Glowing Sea, scuttled my Power Armor.  I was just going to go.”  He shrugged.  ”I’m a synth after all; radiation wouldn’t even hurt me. But what was the point? Was I going to try to commit suicide by deathclaw? Who the hell was that going to benefit?”

She realized she was still holding on to his arm at the same time he did.  He looked down at her hand, fingers wrapped around his forearm, digging into the worn leather of his coat.  She tried to let go, but he put his other hand over hers before she could.

“You risked everything to stop Maxson from executing me.  You convinced me that it wasn’t my fault what I am.  You risked _me_ to end the threat Maxson was posing to the Commonwealth.”  A hint of smile ghost across one corner of his mouth.  “You stopped the Institute and I was just going to walk into a nuclear crater and hoped I was destroyed?  And why, because I couldn’t cope? What kind of a soldier am I?”  He squeezed her hand.  “So I turned around.  I decided that if I was going to exist, I was going to be something useful.  I was going to be worthy of you sparing me.”  He dropped his hand, taking a step back away from her.  Her hand fell limp at her side.  

“I was so fucking angry," he continued. "I am angry, but I don’t even know who to be angry at.”  He grunted in frustration.  “Mostly myself.  It hasn’t gotten any easier.”

“Danse.”  She said his name and stopped.  She didn’t know what to say.  Her heart was breaking all over again.

“You shouldn’t comfort me,” he said.  “I’m the one who abandoned you.”

“You didn’t-” She stopped herself.   _He did._  Pretending it wasn't true didn't change it.  “I understood.”

“I know,” he said.  “You always did.  You put up with me when no one should have.”

She smiled despite herself.

“I missed you terrib-.”

“Danse,” she interrupted.  “Are you sure you missed _me_ or just-”

He cut her off in return. “I know it’s screwed up.  I’m screwed up.  But I’d rather be screwed up with you.”

If she’d ever doubted it he was a person instead of just a machine, this would have clinched it.  This was illogical.   _Stupid.  Crazy._  But here it was.  

Here _he_ was.

“I’d like that,” she said.  “But-”

His lips narrowed into a thin line.  “But what?”

She paused, hunted for the right words.  “I was going somewhere specific and if you really want this, we need to go there together.”

“Where?”  He swallowed, as if he’d already guessed.

“The wreckage of the Prydwen.”

Danse looked pale under his tan.  She imagined she looked worse.  He didn’t say anything.

“I’m going to Nordhagen Beach in the morning and then heading across the inlet.  There's plenty of good tactical reasons to check the wreckage one last time, but ultimately? I can’t just pretend it didn’t happen.  I did it.  I need to face it as much as you do.”

He nodded.  Swallowed.  “Yeah.”

She turned her face in the direction of the airport, though she knew she couldn’t see it from there.  “I thought about this for a long time, about you coming back.  I wanted it so badly,” she admitted.  “But I can’t just pretend everything's okay.”

“It’s not,” he said.  “I don’t know if anything will ever be okay.”

She didn’t look at him.  “Well, it needs to be some version of it.”  She turned back and met his eyes.  For a moment, she couldn’t breathe again.  She remembered how much it hurt when he walked away.  She couldn’t let him back in her life if he was just going to do it again.  “I don’t just have myself to think about anymore.”  She frowned.  “Shaun misses you but he’s lost enough already.  I won’t let him get hurt again.”

“He’s a synth.” Danse's tone was dismissive.

She rolled her eyes at him. “So are you.”

He sighed.  “I told you I was screwed up.”

She offered him her hand.  “I know.  And I can be patient with you.  I always have been.  But only if you don’t walk away again.”

He looked at her hand.  The sun gave him a halo of light, rimming along the edges of his dark hair, along the worn angles of his coat.  He was so still he might have been made of stone.  

She turned the palm of her hand up toward the sky.

Danse took it.


	10. Chapter 10

It was easy to fall into a rhythm. They had gotten good at working together, to build a safe space in the middle of an unsafe world. The Raiders she dispatched had a camp nearby still mostly intact despite her intervention. It didn't take long for them to get the turrets reprogrammed and the wall patched. They lit the oil lamps and she crossed the chains over the door with a click.

Until that moment, it had been easy. They didn't need to talk. They each knew the part they had to play. They’d travelled together long enough to know each others strengths and weaknesses.  But once that chain locked into place and they achieved some sort of tenuous security, she felt a vague sense of discomfort wash over her.

Danse sat on the floor, leaning up against the corner.  His legs were bent up and his forearms rested on his knees.  The yellow glow of the oil lamp reflected in his eyes. It was a warm enough night that the oil lamps were enough to take the chill out of the air.

She sat down on the other side of the lamp, putting the pale light between them like a barrier. They both stared at the little flickering flame inside the glass in silence.

She had so many questions. They swirled around in her head, like flies hovering over a corpse. It was impossible to just pick one out of the mass.

Danse sighed.  A piece of dark hair slipped down on to his forehead and he ran a hand through his hair to tuck it back.  It was longer now, just a little.  He rested his head in his hand, leaning back against the patched wall and stared at the ceiling. She wanted him to say something, but she knew it wasn't in his nature. He struggled even more than she did with this sort of thing. If she wanted to talk to him, and she did, it was up to her.

"So," she said, trying not to feel as awkward as that sounded. "What have you been up to for the last year?”

He tilted his head back down and looked at her. His expression was bland. "I tried to be useful," he said. "And tried to pretend I didn't want to get killed.”

She resisted the urge to argue with him. He always tended toward being grim while trying to instill confidence in others at the same time. This was certainly not the time to try to change him. She took a deep breath.  The air smelled like dust and lamp oil.

“Anything specific?”

He shrugged. "I ran with a caravan for a while. I convinced Lucas not to say anything by taking less pay.”

"That bastard," she said, exasperated. "He came to Sanctuary the week before I left and didn't say a word, even when I specifically asked if he'd seen you.”

"Good to know I can trust his word least," Danse said with a wan smile.

She resisted the urge to sigh irritably. "Anything else? “

"Nothing I want to talk about," he said. The tone of his voice made it clear he wasn't going to elaborate.

She clenched her teeth. "You aren’t making this easy.”

He shrugged with only one shoulder. "Are you surprised? Have I ever made anything easy?”

That surprised her.  She laughed. "Self-awareness looks good on you at least.”

He tried to smile again but it didn't seem genuine.  He ran a finger over the ridge of his cheekbone and smudged dirt across his skin.  Again it looked like he was going to say something, but then he thought better of it.

"Talk to me Danse," she said. "I didn't judge you before, not gonna start now.”

"I’m not any better talking about things than I was," he said. "Worse maybe. I'm out of practice.”

"Try.”

Danse wrapped his arms around his shins, pulling his legs close up against his chest.   He seemed to shrink.  The only time he ever seemed so small was the first time she saw him out of his power armor.  Even then, it was only until she got close enough to realize how tall he still was.  "I'm trying.” He said his chin on his knees. _So small._ "I don’t want to make things worse than they already are.”

"What do you think I’ll do? Throw you out, hope you get eaten by ferals?”

“I wouldn't blame you if you did.”

“Goddamnit Danse, why is it you think I'm angry at you?" she said.  She heard her voice catch.  “I was never angry.  I'm only frustrated that you won't talk to me. Tell me what happened out there. Please.”

"Nothing happened." He closed his eyes. His hair flopped down over his forehead.  "That's the problem.  I had a duty; I had a reason for doing what I did. It was about survival, but it was also more than that. Risking my life for the greater good and gave me _purpose.  N_ ow it feels like I'm back to the broken, pointless beginning. Like scrounging for scrap in the wasteland outside of Rivet City.” He shook his head. "I didn’t have a family.  I didn’t have anyone to depend on or who depended on me.  Life didn't have purpose. I just did what I had to.  I was just existing.  When the Brotherhood came, it was like the sun after rad storm. My life finally had meaning.”

His voice broke. It made her heart hurt.

"You gave me that too; a reason to fight.  But then?" he continued before she could say anything.. "With the Brotherhood lost to me, and then destroyed?  I didn't have anything left. No purpose. No enemies to fight.  Only myself.  And I don't even know who that is.”

"I know who you are,” she said.  She leaned forward with her hands on her knees crossed in front of her. "Maybe you can't see it, but I can. Everyone can. I don't understand why you can't.”

"I'm not sure there's anything to see.”  He frowned and crossed his legs in front of him.  “I know that I feel things; I want things.  But I don’t know if that’s enough.”  He grunted.  “And being here makes me question everything I thought I still might be.”

She furrowed her brow.  He was not making things any clearer.  

She could see his pulse in the big veins in his neck.  He struggled.  “The man I thought I was would never forgive you for what you did.  That man would have taken you west, to where the Brotherhood still is strong.  He would make damn sure you got justice for what you did, even if it means they’ll execute me as well.”  He made a strangled sound.  “But I understand why you did it.  I really do.  When I joined the Brotherhood, Elder Lyons led us and he was nothing like Maxson.  But my brothers wanted to fight and Maxson gave us the that fight, over and over again.   But good reason or not, you _killed them._   You promised to fight at their sides and you blew them up in their beds.  I've questioned myself over and over _what kind of a person can forgive that?_ "  He snorted. "Then I’d remind myself that I’m not a person and I’d start all over again.”

“Wow, Congratulations,” she said quickly. “That’s the most human explanation of guilt I think I’ve ever heard.  _Not a person_ my ass.”

“What am I supposed to do?” His voice was pleading.  "Just tell me."

She raised her eyebrows.  “I have no idea.  I can’t tell you how to feel or how to live.”

He was staring hard at the flickering light of the lamp.  He tilted his eyes up and looked at her, a deep fold between his eyebrows.  

_Those goddamn puppy eyes.  He is trying to kill me._

“It feels better to say it out loud.  It's hard.  I don't think I was programmed to handle this sort of emotional conflict,” he admitted.  “Though mostly, it just makes me sad.”

“It makes me sad too,” she said.  “I wish there had been another way.”

He only nodded as if he didn’t trust himself to reply.  He leaned back against the wall again, tilted his head back and closed his eyes.  Her eyes were burning.  Everything inside of her was screaming at her to comfort him, to comfort herself.  She wanted desperately to be closer.   She missed him more than she dared say out loud.  Only Shaun had any idea; he was the only one who she let her guard down around. He listened to her stories, wanted to know more about the other synth his mom loved.  Shaun saw Danse as man he wanted to be some day.  Just like a little boy would look up to his dad.

She swallowed hard against the sudden lump in her throat, pushing  down the threatening tears.  She didn’t cry.  She _didn’t._

“Goodnight Danse,” she said because she didn’t dare say or do what she really wanted to.  She laid down on the floor and curled up on her side, cradling her head on her arm.  

What she really meant was _I love you._

He didn’t reply.

 

***

 

She was almost ready to comment how the trip from camp to Nordhagen beach had been uneventful when the Assaultron burst out of the back of a downed truck, lasers blasting.

She saw Danse dive for cover out of the corner of her eye.  She dodged behind a car.  Danse was doing the same on the other side of what was left of the street.  The skeleton of a man sat behind the wheel, a hat still jammed on to his bony head.  Danse had a hunting rifle, modified with a bayonet and a short barrel at the ready.  It was strange seeing him with a ballistic weapon instead of an energy rifle but he handled it with the same confidence.

“I swore I got all these things the last time I came through here,” she shouted over the high pitched vibration of the laser.

“You missed one!” There was humor in his voice.  He was always good when weapons were hot.  He darted out long enough to fire off a few shots, the gun cracking through the din.  “Aim for the right leg!" he shouted.  "Another hit and it’ll be crawling.”

She flipped over and scoped in on the joint where it’s leg hydraulics attached to the body.  She squeezed the trigger and felt the recoil slam the buttstock into her shoulder.  The bot went down, spinning claws grabbing desperately at the cracked blacktop.  

Danse looked at her and they communicated without speaking.  They’d done this maneuver often enough.  He raised his hand, peeking out around cover.  She watched carefully until his hand dropped.  They moved almost in unison, rifles firing into the head and shoulders.  Only a few well placed shots and it went limp, electricity sparking and then dying across its metal skin.

She was still catching her breath when he got to his feet.  Danse walked over to her, still faintly amused and offered her his hand.   _Always help your brothers and sisters after an engagement._   Old habits indeed.  He yanked her to her feet.  She tried not to like the way it felt with his hand wrapped around her wrist.  She tried to blame her racing heart on the fighting.  

He didn't let go, just stood there, holding her wrist.  She swore her heart did a cartwheel.

_This is ridiculous._

“We still work well together,” he said.  

She smirked despite herself.  “That’s because I let you be the boss.”

Danse smiled for a heartbeat but then his smile sort of slipped off his face.  He looked down at her wrist in his hand, her fingers on his forearm.  He swallowed hard.  A part of her thought she should let go, but the stronger, more stupid part refused.  Instead she flexed her fingers and tightened her grip.  

“We were always good partners,” he said.  His voice was carefully even.  “I wasn’t sure I remembered correctly.”

She squeezed again and took a half step forward.  “We were.  We _are_ or at least, we could be again.” He finally looked up as she shifted her weight forward again.  She stopped, waited.

“I’d like that, but,” he hunted for a word.  “It scares me that I’ll wake up one day and regret. Then again….”  He stopped short and his face went a little pale.  “Not here.  This is a bad place for an important conversation.”

“Right,” she said, trying to hide her disappointment when he let go of her hand.  “Nordhagen is just over the bridge.  Let’s go.”

“Affirmative.”

It was both weird and comforting to hear him talk like that.  The Brotherhood of Steel might have exiled him.  Maxson might have started them all down a dark path, a path that forced her to stop him but whatever the Brotherhood did, they couldn’t take away what Danse was, no matter how hard they tried.  He wasn’t just a synth, something to hate for existing.  

Maybe he’d forgotten, but she remembered.  

Danse was a soldier.  He was willing to live and die for the greater good; willing to risk his own life for an ideal -- for the idea that there was hope for a better world out there despite all the evidence to the contrary.  He’d been fighting his whole life and he was fighting still.  This time he was against himself, against the idea that things aren’t black and white or good and bad.  He was fighting to move past what happened, to let go and to move forward.  He was fighting to stay with her.

She could feel it.

Maybe in another life she was a lawyer, a mom, someone who took life for granted.  But she was a soldier now, just like he was.  He taught her how to be one.  He was the reason she’d gotten this far.

Danse was fighting for his life and she needed to show him he was worth fighting for.  
 


	11. Chapter 11

The settlers at Nordhagen fed them Mirelurk cakes and mutfruit and it was lovely.  Maybe it was the fighting.  Maybe it was because he had to change to survive, but Danse was better around people than she remembered.  He smiled and if he wasn’t jovial, he was unfailingly polite and gracious.  It was easy to be around him.  

They didn’t have long together the last time.  Just a few short weeks between her showdown with Maxson and when they forced her hand.  But it was wonderful.  He was struggling then, trying to cope with learning he was a synth.  But he was trying and he was open with her in a way he hadn’t let himself be before.  

He never told her that he loved her, but he showed her even if he didn’t realize it.  

This moment felt like those days.  It was strange to remember it that way.  Those days were full of high stakes and impossible choices.  She was planning how best to destroy the machine of the Institute and inevitably her son along with it.  Shaun might have been a grown man, old and diminishing from the cancer that was slowly killing him, but she saw herself in his face.  When it got too heavy a burden to bear, Danse held her up until he didn’t.  Until the Prydwen.

Tomorrow they’d take one of the little fishing boats and cross the inlet.  Tomorrow they’d stand on the scorched earth and see if it was possible to be forgiven and to move forward.  But tonight, they’d drink tarberry wine and sit around a campfire on the beach under the stars.

It was something to savor.

They had scavenged airplane seats for around the fire, some in singles and some in pairs.  The vinyl felt warm and cracked under her legs.  The worn jeans and flannel shirt were just the right combination of warm and comfortable. It felt good to be out of armor, out of one of the dozen of costumes she wore.  She liked it here.  Always had.  She hoped that tomorrow wouldn’t taint it for her.

There were barely enough chairs to go around.  Somehow she ended up sharing one of the double seats with Danse.  She tried not to let it get to her, but that wasn’t a battle she was going to win.  Just like the few flights she’d taken in her life, the seats were close and narrow.  His hip pressed up against hers.

She’d had a little too much to drink.  

As the night dragged on, the settlers wandered off to their beds; there was always a lot of do to keep a place like this intact and growing.  Even when there were plenty of seats to go around, she didn’t move.  Neither did he. She was drowsy.  Her head leaned against his shoulder while he talked armor mods with the last of the settlers awake.  She wasn’t asleep, but her eyes were closed.  She wasn’t paying attention to what they were saying, but she loved the low rumble when Danse spoke.  For a little while, she tried to pretend everything was okay.  

When she heard the other man excuse himself for the night, a flutter of anxiety settled in her chest.  She opened her eyes, trying to gather her wits.  She knew he’d want to talk to her the moment they were alone.  She wasn’t sure she was ready.

Talking never went that well.  She prayed for a stealth mirelurk.

She had her eyes open, but she didn’t move her head from his shoulder.  If everything was about to go to hell, she was going to enjoy this as long as she could.  Danse pressed his cheek against the top of her head.  It felt amazing. 

“Are you awake?” he asked.  

“Can I lie and tell you I'm asleep?”

He chuckled.  “I think that option no longer applies.”

“Dammit.”  She lifted her head to look at him.  He was smiling, but his eyes were sad.

“I hate to ruin this night, but, we need to talk.”

“I know.”

“It was nice, but I-”  He sighed.  “Do you remember Dr. Virgil?”

“Of course.  He’s still out there, in the Glowing sea.  I bring him blood samples when I can.  I keep trying to tell him that he can come out now, but he says the solitude inspires him.”  She frowned.  “I just think he’s afraid people will look at him and know what he did.”

“I think about him,” Danse said.  “When I think about making mistakes.”

She remembered something she said to him once -- after Fort Strong, after he told her about…

“Cutler,” he said, as if finishing her thought.  "There was another way.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

He grimaced.  “I didn’t even try.”

“Danse there’s-”

“No, listen to me,” he said.  “I don’t know if what happened out there,” he continued, gesturing with his head across the inlet.  “If there was another way you could have stopped them from killing all the synths, from destroying the Railroad, from doing god knows what else after that.”  He stopped and took a deep breath.  “But you couldn’t have known, and I still don't know.  Not any more than I could have known Cutler might have been saved. I lived with that guilt for a long time, with the loss of the only real friend I ever had. And I know you’re living with it now.”

She bit her lip, trying to keep herself together.  “I wish there had been another way.  They were my friends too.  I think about them….”  She shook her head, just the slightest movement but her hair fell into her face.  “It kills me what I had to do.  To them, to Shaun.  But what else could I do? Just lay down and let them trample all over the Commonwealth to their own ends? Just let them destroy everything when I had the chance to stop it?  I couldn’t.”

“I know,” he said.  He shifted sideways so he could look at her, his hands resting on his thighs.  “It still hurts, what I had to do to Cutler.  But I’ve learned to live with it.  You helped me deal with it, finally move on and not be afraid of letting someone get close to me again.  And I think I want to do the same thing for you.  I just don’t know how.”

She put her hand on top of his, hoping like hell he wouldn’t move away.  He looked down but stayed still.  

“I just need you to forgive me,” she said.  She tried to smile.  “Well, and not shoot at me.”

“That I can do,” he said but didn't sound at all amused.  “But the rest is hard.  It’s hard to just turn it off.”

She didn’t know what to say.  There weren’t any other ways to apologize. And as sad as it made her when she thought about the friends she’d lost, she _wasn’t_ sorry.  The people of the Commonwealth had a chance at carving their own lives out of what was left of the world now.  If she hadn’t done it, who knew what might have happened? How much worse might it be?

She was willing to die for the greater good.  So was he.  Killing for it and living with the consequences was harder.

“I don’t know if you want to hear this,” she said.  “But how I feel about you, about us, it never changed, no matter how bad things got.  All I want is for you to find someway to be happy.  For a little while, we had happiness and I want it again.  But if you can’t let it go, I just want to help you find it somewhere else.  You were right when you told me I had something real.  Even though it’s lost, it was a real thing, my husband and son.  Those years before the war are what kept me going through this nightmare.  And maybe you had something real before too, but it’s gone now.  Your real life replaced by the memories the Railroad gave you. Without that to start from, it made everything that came after that much harder.”  She squeezed his hand.  When he didn’t look up she tilted up his face with her fingertips under his chin.  “ _I love you._  I want you to be happy.”

His shoulders shifted just a little, like he wasn’t sure what to do with himself.  He opened his mouth and closed it again.  “I-”

She put her fingers over his mouth.  “Don’t force it,” she said.  “Just give us a chance.  Give me another chance.  I waited a year for you to come back.  I can wait a little longer.”

He swallowed hard and nodded.  “I want to.”

For the first time since his silhouette appeared over her, she smiled at him and it felt like a real smile.  It felt like there was still a reason to get up and keep trying.  Even if it all fell apart, she knew that she was getting another chance and she was going to make the most of it.  She put her hand on the side of his face.  The fire light lit him on one side in bright shades of gold and orange.  Shadows were silvery blue.  She seared that image in her head.  This was one of those little moments. It was one shreds of happiness that meant so much more now than it ever could have before.

They moved together at the same time.  The kiss was soft, delicate, hesitant.  Her heart thudded in her chest like a drum.

He pressed his forehead against hers.  “I missed you,” he whispered.  “I’m so glad to be home.”

 

***

 

They ended up in their tent, pitched on the edge of the settlement in the damp, cool sand.  What started as a kiss, fraught with insecurities, with fears had become passion instead.  Whatever else had gone wrong, they had never lacked for desire. Once, he held her at arm’s length.  Decorum and regulations were a shield for feelings they knew would only complicate things.

Things were so fucking complicated now.  She still wanted him.

Touching him was amazing.  He was different, but still the same.  It was impossible to explain it.  She pulled him half on top of her, desperate to feel the weight of his body, the solidity that made him feel real.  The soft hair of his beard brushed against her lips.  He tasted like tarberry wine, woodsmoke.  He had his fingers tangled in her hair, cupping her head.  His other hand moved along the curve of her waist, her hip, her thigh.

She shifted her leg where it was trapped between his.  Where he was hesitant to admit his feelings, his body was direct.  She pressed herself against his muscled thigh.  She moved her hips by instinct.  She couldn’t let herself think or she was going to fall apart.

She needed this.  She needed him.

His mouth moved down her neck, lips brushing against the soft skin of her throat, behind her ear.  His hair tickled her face.

“Oh god, Danse, please.”  She heard herself say it, but it didn’t seem real.  She shift her weight and he moved with her, letting her yank his coat off his arms.  Immediately her fingers were under the thin fabric of his tee shirt, the warm sweat damp touch of his skin both familiar and new.  Impatiently, she yanked it off over his head.

He dragged her on to her side, the buttons of her flannel popping out of the worn buttonholes with little effort.  She shrugged it off her shoulders, unhooking her bra so her skin could touch his.  She kissed him again, hard, pressing his back down against the sleeping bag.  It was only sand underneath and she could feel it already, kicked up between them, sticking to their skin.

It was going to get everywhere and she didn’t care.  

She could feel his heart beating hard and fast, his breath as ragged as hers.  The wiry hair on his chest, the sand, it was going to rub her skin raw.

Her fingers were between them on the the flat of his belly.  Her thumb was poised on the button of his jeans, her fingers tucked into the waistband.  She stopped short.  She’d missed him so badly.  She missed the way he touched her, they way he made her feel, how it made her feel whole when he was inside of her.  But she was overwhelmed with anxiety.  Did he really want this? Did he want her or only this comfort, the temporary insanity of sex?

It was dark, only the fading light from the fire through the canvas to light them.  She could just make out his face, the square outline of his jaw, the heavy ridge of his eyebrows.  There was glint of orange in his eyes.  She pressed a delicate kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“Are you sure?” she whispered.

He didn’t say anything, just reached up and cupped her face between the large palms of his hands.  His fingers were calloused and rough  but she rubbed her cheek against them.  He still didn’t say anything only pulled her closer and kissed her again.  He wasn’t always great with words, but she got the message.

No holding back.

Her fingers had his jeans unbuttoned before she let herself question again.  She needed to feel him, the pulse of his blood under questing fingers, the thick coarse hair, the skin that was softer than her own.  He groaned and closed his eyes as she wrapped her fingers around him.  

He was so hard, so aroused. She felt a flood of moisture between her legs in response.  She wasn’t sure she’d ever wanted anyone as much before.  She didn’t wait for him.  Wriggling her jeans over hips, she pulled them down her legs, dragging her panties with them.  He lifted his hips to help him do the same.  She rolled him back on top of her, her thighs on either side of his hips.  

He needed to initiate this.  She needed him to take her, she could only give.

She’d taken enough from him already just by showing up in his life.  She wanted was to give him whatever she could in return; her heart, her body.  Anything, as long as he didn’t leave again.

His hand was between them, angling his cock to slide inside her.  He moved so slowly, agonizingly slow.  He rubbed the head of his cock against her and she gasped, her fingers fisted in the sand.  Her other hand flexed against the roped muscle of his arms where he held himself up over her.

She wanted to beg.  She bit her tongue instead.

His hips moved forward, the smooth head of his cock sliding against her skin.  The beveled head of his cock opened her.  He stopped, waited.  He breathed out sharp between his teeth, a muscle twitching in his jaw.  He moved again in one long sinuous motion until the ridge of his hipbones were against her thighs.  She felt his cock pulse inside of her, felt his muscles tense.  It had been a long time, their emotions were at a fever pitch.  They struggled together to be still.  He buried his face in her neck.

WIth a soft sigh, he started to move.  Shallow thrusts with his hips, as if he couldn’t bear to move away from her.  His breath was hot against her ear.  She wrapped her arms around his back and clung to him, pushing her hips up to meet his.  They moved like the did in battle, as a unit, without needing to plan, just knowing each other so intimately that they could anticipate how to react.  She felt his eyelashes when he squeezed his eyes shut.

It seemed to drag on for an eternity. Their mingled breathing was hard and out of sync.  Their bodies moving, grinding against each other in perfect rhythm.  The muscles in his back tensed.  He shivered, stilling.

“I can’t,” he murmured, lips brushing her shoulder.  “It’s been-”

She shushed him, kissing his temple.  “Don’t hold anything back.”

He shuddered again and started to move, those shallow strokes stretching out.  He was pounding her, slamming himself into her.  Low, ragged noises tore from her throat.  Short fingernails dug into his back.  Unthinking, uncaring if anyone heard, she called out his name.  With a long, low groan, he thrust into her one last time and he came undone.  His cock throbbed and pulsed inside of her.  Her body reacted to his, clenching him hard.  She squeezed her eyes closed so tight she saw stars.

He collapsed on top of her panting and she held on tight.  She wrapped her leg around his hips crushing him against her.  When he inevitably shifted his weight, worried he would crush her, she moved with him so he was still inside of her.    

From the other side of the canvas there was a smattering of applause and some dirty laughter.

Danse grinned.  She felt the curve of his lips when he kissed her, small touches against her mouth, her cheeks, her eyelids.  There was enough light that she could see his eyes shining with mischief.

“ _Ad victorium,_ ” he said, smirking.

It didn’t hurt when he said it.  Maybe it should have, those words fraught with meaning, but his expression didn’t even flicker.  

Maybe there was a real chance for them after all.


	12. Chapter 12

The air was acrid with the scent of scorched steel.  

She thought it would have faded after this much time had passed but it was still there, hanging over the wreckage like a cloud.  The needle on her geiger counter danced back and forth, clicking.  The rads were low, but still there.  The Rad-X she’d taken sat in her stomach like a stone.

“God,” Danse muttered under his breath as the picked their way through the debris.  “There’s just nothing left.”

She frowned.  “It burned hot,” she said, wiping sweat off her forehead with her sleeve.  “All that hydrogen.” She shook her head.  “All the ammo, weapons-”

“Bodies,” he added.  His voice was hoarse.  “At least it was a hell of pyre.”

She had no idea how to respond to that.  She was glad for it though, even if she hadn’t thought about it before.  She couldn’t.  The idea that the corpses of the knights, the scribes, even Maxsen would have been torn apart by mirelurks was too much to even think about.

Danse crouched down and pulled something out from underneath an overturned plate of crumpled steel.

“Wait,” he said softly.  She took a half step towards him.  It was a piece of ballistic weave.  Melted into the fibers, it looked like leather, like flesh, scorched and burned almost beyond recognition.  Her heart stopped.  The Railroad had plenty of agents that wore ballistic weave.  Tinker Tom knew his business.  But there was only one person in the Brotherhood who’d been deemed worth the effort to armor with it.

_Maxson._

“Shit.”  What else could she say?

Danse swallowed and flipped the metal out of the way.  Thankfully, the fire had burned so hot, all that was left was pieces of the weave.  There were no bones or hair or flesh or anything left of his body.  Even his metal dog tags were gone.  Danse just stood there, staring blankly at the place where the man who had lifted him up and then threw him back down again had once lay.

“I used to look up to him,” he said, not looking at her.  “Even though he was younger than me.”  He snorted.  “Actually, probably not, now that I think of it, but younger than I thought I was.  But he seemed to always know exactly what to do, what had to be done.  He was so confident in his choices and his decisions; it seemed wrong to question him.”  He turned his face and looked at her over his shoulder.  “Elder Lyons wasn’t like that.  He was confident, sure, but he never acted like he was above making mistakes.  And he helped people, tried to make lives for the citizens of the Capital Wasteland better. And people hated him for it.  The Brotherhood lost half their ranks because of it.”  He gave her a bitter smile.  “That’s how I got recruited in the first place, to try to get their numbers back up.”  

She gingerly stepped over a few pieces of shattered i-beam to stand next to him.  Danse looked down at her for a moment, his face not sure what expression he wanted.  He turned back and dropped the piece of weave back into the pile.

“After Elder Lyons died, his daughter led us for a while.  Just a little before we lost her too.  That’s when Maxson took over.  God, everyone adored him.  His blood tied him right back to the beginning of the Brotherhood, and unlike Lyons he wanted to fight.  He was positive that the right task for us was to destroy mutants, synths, anything that put us back on the battlefield.”  He ran his hand through his hair and let his hand fall limply to his side.  “I think he wanted to help people ultimately, but he didn’t see any point in trying until those abominations were destroyed.   _By any means necessary._  Collateral damage wasn’t important.”

“But it is,” she said.  Her mouth tasted like ashes.  “That’s what Shaun said about Kellogg murdering his father. _An unfortunate bit of collateral damage_ as if that somehow made it less of a cold blooded murder.  It wasn’t a battle, not like what happened here.”

“You’re right,” he said.  “It’s not the same.  When I stand here and see the destruction that the Brotherhood created by accident?  Imagine what they would have done by design?”

“They?” she asked, prodded.  “Not we?”

Danse shook his head.  “Not we.  Maxson made sure of that.”

They stood in silence for a while.  Waves lapped at the beach in the distance, the weird shrieking of the mutated seagulls was shrill in the air.  A breeze blew in from over the water taking some of the burnt smell and replacing it with the tang of seawater.  It didn’t smell quite right, not like she remembered it, but it was close.

She took a deep breath.  “So now what?”

He just looked at her for a long moment, blinking slow.  She could see his jaw twitch when he clenched his teeth.  “You have my holotags?”

She nodded and fished them out from under her shirt, pulling them off over her head.  Danse held out his hand and she dropped them into his palm.  He closed his fingers around them and stared at his fist.  Without a word, he turned away from her and in one liquid motion threw them as hard as he could towards the heart of wreckage.  She heard a _ting_ when they impacted metal and then they were gone.

“Now,” he said, turning back to her and offering her his hand instead. He smiled at her brilliantly as she put her hand in his. His eyes lit up. “Now we go home.”

 


End file.
